Curd Cheesecakes

Yorkshire Cheesecake or Curd Tart  Lemon Cheesecake
Curd Tart  Curd Cheesecake
Yorkshire Curd Tart
Curd Cheesecake (Comment)

YORKSHIRE CHEESECAKE OR CURD TART


Pastry: 6-oz short crust pastry

 

  1. Roll out the pastry and line a 7" flan ring placed on a baking sheet.
  2. Combine the filling ingredients. Spoon into pastry case.
  3. Bake above centre of oven at 400 F, Gas 6, for about 30 minutes until pastry is cooked and filling just firm & golden.


Best eaten whilst just warm.

[Sorry - can't help with the curd part - maybe someone else can!
Nina Pickup, Seamer Scarborough, N Yorkshire]



CURD TART.

 

Mix together the filling and pop into pastry case(s)
Bake hot oven for 15-20 min.


Mrs. J.Smith. Halifax.

 

YORKSHIRE CURD TART:

Hi June: I know you have some recipes for Yorkshire curd tart, but you may like to have this one for several reasons:

1. It is at least 250 years old.
2. The recipe is fairly unique in using rosewater.
3. The pastry is also at least 100 years old.
4. It describes how to make the curd (very easy).
5. It will be shown on the Food & Drink programme on BBC2, probably on the 12th October, in a feature on Yorkshire curd tart.
PASTRY:
4 oz (120g) plain flour
1 oz (30g) icing sugar
2 oz (60g) butter
1/2 beaten egg
CURD:
3 pts (2 l) milk (not skimmed)
fresh lemon juice
4 oz (120g) butter
1-2 tablespoons rosewater
1 1/2 beaten eggs
cinnamon, nutmeg
To make pastry:
Mix flour and sugar and rub in butter.
Add beaten egg and mix.
To make curd:
Heat the milk almost to boiling, add lemon juice (1/2 to 1 lemon), and stir until it curdles.
Allow to stand until cool, and drain through a cheesecloth overnight.
This should produce about 10 oz (300g) of curd.

ROSEWATER: You can make this in the early summer by picking about 50g petals from a fragrant variety just as the buds are opening, covering with water, standing overnight, and straining. However the results are just as good with rosewater from a health food shop, chemist, etc.

Beat the butter with the rosewater.
Mix in the curds.
Mix in the beaten eggs, then grate in cinnamon to taste.
Line an 8" (20 cm) tin with pastry, fill with mix, sprinkle with nutmeg, and bake at 190oC for 25-30 minutes.

If you prefer, you can add a handful of currants to the mix, but this wasn't in the original recipe! Conrad.

Correspondance between the editor and the mailer of this recipe:

A question occurs to me, where would you buy rosewater?
I live in BC Canada! Do you think it would be available?
Kind regards, June

Dear June We can buy rosewater quite easily in the UK. It is sold in some supermarkets, and also health food/vegetarian shops as a food flavouring. You might also find it in the equivalent of our chemists shops - drugstore or whatever, sold as a perfumed additive to bath water, as a skin cleanser, or as a basis for what is described on the bottle as 'floral waters'. However if it is not sold for culinary purposes, check the ingredients - it should have nothing but water, flavouring, and a preservative such as isopropanol. Good luck! Conrad

 

CURD CHEESECAKE (Comment)

Someone was looking for a curd cheesecake recipe. I couldn't find one in Mrs. Beeton's (gasp!), nor in a variety of other British cookery books I've got; however, I did find a vegetarian version - no gelatine/gelatin.
Y'all know that gelatine/gelatin comes from the boiled bones of dead animals, don't you? You might try adding some agar agar according to packet directions, because otherwise you have to keep this thing WELL chilled and handle very carefully or you end up with collapsed cheesecake. Not a pretty sight.

Recipes like this are why I was the recipient of the remark, "Oh, you're vegetarian? Really? I thought vegetarians were THIN."

American subscribers will be happy to know these are US measurements for a change (it's a US version of a British book). Others will have to convert. Americans use an 8 oz. cup for measuring liquid AND dry ingredients. Spoons are 1/3 smaller. Have fun compensating.

LEMON CHEESECAKE


Finely crush biscuits/crackers, stir into melted butter. Press mixture into base of 8" springform cake pan.
Grate rind from lemons, saving a few curls for decoration, squeeze out juice. Place in bowl with sugar. Beat well Slowly beat in cheeses and continue beating until mixture is smooth. Whip cream well until it holds its shape and fold in cheese. Spread cheese mixture over base and level surface. Cover and refrigerate several hours.
Turn cheesecake out on to serving plate [if you dare, I usually leave it on the springform base]. Decorate with whipped cream and lemon curls.

I've also put this recipe in the cold desserts section as it is not a traditional curd cheesecake!!!!

Pauline (new editor and Yorkshire woman brought up with curd cheesecake as part of our staple diet).
My recipe is below!

CURD CHEESECAKE

Pastry
12ounces of plain flour
6ounces of lard
cold water to mix

Make Pastry
Line 6 curd tart tins (about 14cms (5-6inches)diameter) with pastry.

Curd Filling

8 ounces Curd
8 ounces Sugar
4 ounces melted butter or margarine
2 or 3 Eggs
2 ounces of Currants
Scraping of Nutmeg

Mix all filling ingredients together.
Put filling into prepared tins
Bake in the centre of the oven at about 350 to 400 degrees until brown and set.