Neenish tart is a popular Australian dessert, with uncertain origins, but possibly invented in New South Wales in the early 20th century. The tart is a round pastry with a sugar pastry base, filled with custard or mock cream and jam, and glazed in two contrasting colors, usually vanilla and chocolate. Variations in recipes exist, but the contrasting glaze is the key feature.
A neenish tart or neinich tart is a popular dessert in Australia and may have been invented in New South Wales, Australia, probably around the turn of the 20th century. There are only hints as to what the origin of neenish tart may be, but a recipe for neenish tarts is known to have been first printed in Miss Drake’s Home Kitchen from 1929. A second recipe printed in Miranda’s Cookbook of the 1932 and differs somewhat from the 1929 version. The tarts may have been named after a woman named RuNeenish. In those accounts, Mrs. Neenish did not create the tarts, but instead they were named in her honour. Another suggestion is that the alternative spelling suggests an invention in Germany, but this has not been proven.
Neenish tart is a round pastry, prepared in individual portions. They are usually about 10.16 cm in diameter. The bottom of the tart is made of pastry, somewhat close to shortcrust pastry but with a little added sugar. The bottom crust is placed in small cake pans. This is where recipes and ingredients start to differ. In some recipes, the custard is added to the cans and both the pastry and the custard cook together. In other neenish tart recipes, the pastry is baked and filled with mock cream or buttercream.
Both recipes may therefore recommend adding a small amount of jam before the entire tart is glazed in two contrasting colors. In the first recipes the two glazes were usually vanilla and chocolate. Today, vanilla frosting can have a touch of red food coloring so that the two colors are pink and brown.
Other differences may exist from one recipe to another. For example, mock lemon custard and jam may be suggested or the baked pie shell may be filled with premade custard. Since there is so much variance, it’s fine to be free in how you fill the tarts, both pudding and mock cream are fine, and any type of jam would be acceptable, except perhaps grapes. The main thing that makes this tart a neenish tart, and that most recipes agree on, is to make sure you have a contrasting glaze on top of the chocolate and vanilla, or even chocolate and lemon.
Tarts can be a delicious dessert to serve. If you use a light custard or jam-filled pudding, the frosting won’t make the dessert too sweet. Otherwise, in a way, neenish tart is like a small bowl of icing and can be overly sweet for some people’s palates. Yet in the many forms they come in, the neenish tart is highly prized.
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