It’s no mystery that the Rowes have gone full Yorkshire… 

Yorkshire curd tart

… and on one of their recent grand days out, Trota managed to put her mitts on a little gem: The Great Northern Cookbook by actor, chef and cheesemaker (yes!) Sean Wilson.

Never mind that the Rowes couldn’t even agree on what makes the perfect local tart (is it the curd or is it the custard?), with daft debates in front of high street bakeries, to the amusement of passers-by: Trota decided that page 34 was the ideal place to start.

And because she had already researched the subject most thoroughly and conducted a campaign of ‘secret shopper’ tastings, our Trota was ready to customise the curd tart recipe as follows:

Ingredients for the pastry: 170g self-raising flour, 85g unsalted butter cold from the fridge, pinch of salt, 1 tsp icing sugar, 1 medium egg.

For the filling: 450g curd cheese, if you can find it (we couldn’t, so we used full-fat cream cheese and ricotta, about half of each), 85g caster sugar, 3 large eggs beaten, 1 large untreated lemon (juice and zest), 45g butter melted, 100g raisins, ½ tsp mixed ground spices.

Start with the pastry: whizz the flour, salt, sugar and butter in a food processor to create a breadcrumb texture; add the egg and pulse a few more times until the pastry starts to come together. Roll the pastry out and use it to line a 20cm Ø tin. Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 190°C and prepare the filling: mix the ingredients, starting with the sugar and spices, then the lemon (juice and zest), eggs and butter, and finally the cheese and raisins. Make sure all the ingredients are well combined. Take the pastry shell out of the fridge, remove the cling film and fill with the cheese mixture.

Bake for 50–60 minutes until the crust is golden and the filling looks set. Let it cool, then slice confidently and serve. Ee, bah gum – that’s almost not bad for a first attempt!