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We had guests so there would have to be pudding. The day before the Guardian magazine had featured a rhubarb and custard tart and it sounded so lovely and looked so pretty that I just had to give it a go. And so to Borough Market where the pricing on rhubarb varied wildly from £4.50 a kilo to an extortionate £7.20. The stems were narrow so the shape wasn’t kept but the taste was great. And just look at that custard. It’s scented with vanilla from a herbs and spices stall at Borough Market. The owner of which gives you the life history of the £3-a-pop-Madagascan-plucked-by-maidens vanilla pods and you can’t conceive of buying a dried vanilla husk ever again.

Preparation time: 30 minutes (plus chilling time for the pastry)
Cooking time: 35 minutes x 2
Skill level: Medium

Ingredients

For the pastry

• plain flour - 100g
• chilled butter - 65g
• caster sugar (or vanilla sugar to continue the theme) - 25g
• beaten egg - 1/2 tbsp
• water - 1tbsp

For the filling

• rhubarb - 500g - cut into 5cm pieces
• zest of 1/2 orange
• freshly squeezed orange juice - 3 tbsp
• caster or vanilla sugar - 3 tbsp
• 1 vanilla pod - split and cut in half

For the custard

• double cream - 250ml
• 1 vanilla pod - split
• egg yolks - 5
• caster or vanilla sugar - 2-3 tbsp

First make the pastry.

Put the flour and butter in a big bowl and mix until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and stir together. Mix the beaten egg with the water. Slowly add the egg mixture to the pastry and mix until you have a nice ball of dough. Chill for 30 minutes before use.
Then use. Preheat oven to 200C (gas mark 6). Roll out pastry to fit a 28cm tin. Bake blind with beans/rice/other heavy things  on crumpled greaseproof paper for 15 minutes. Set aside.

Then to the filling.

Preheat the oven to 200C (gas mark 6). Mix the rhubarb, zest, juice, sugar and vanilla, in a roasting tin. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until soft and a little caramalised. Cool. Strain off the juices, if juices there be, depends on the rhubarb, mine was rather young and slender so yielded little in the way of extra liquid. Remove the vanilla pod. Reduce the oven temperature to 130C (gas mark 1/2).

Custard now. Pour the cream and split vanilla pod into a pan and heat through. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar, then pour into the cream, whisking as you go. Sieve into a jug then add the vanilla seeds to the custard.

Add the rhubarb to the pastry shell and pour over the custard until just below the top. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30–40 minutes until just set. Serve hot or cold. Let’s face it, you won’t be wanting to wait for it to cool before tucking in.

Verdict: So very tasty. A lovely sweet pastry encasing rhubarb with its slightly sour flavour and then the creamy custard, a perfect combination if I might be so bold. Definitely making that one again.

Drink: More wine. One of us had rather a lot that night, but we were entertaining so there was an excuse.

Entertainment: A phone call from my sister who was at the railway station in Nice waiting to board her night train to Rome. The small flat in Bethnal Green and the daily toil suddenly seemed all the worse.