We all have that friend who ...

You know when you're on Facebook or Twitter and a friend posts pictures of some sort of food, wether its breakfast, lunch, dinner or even worse … dessert … and you just HAVE TO HAVE IT !!

Well I had one of those very moments a couple of days ago when a friend of mine posted a picture of a classical school dinners dessert, cornflake tart, and I wanted it right then.

There and then was just not going to happen since I was all out of the vital component, cornflakes, and to add to my predicament outside it was beginning to snow rather heavily so there was no way I was venturing outdoors.

Yesterday the sunshine decided to make a brief appearance so I grabbed my chance and off I went to get my hands on a box of cornflakes. 

For this recipe I made John Whaite's  rich sweet short crust pastry, but cheated with the custard and used shop bought.

For the pastry you will need :

1 egg

125g golden caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour

125g salted butter - cut into cubes

For the filling you will need:

4-5 tbsp raspberry jam

4 tbsp golden syrup

100g cornflakes

55g butter

25g soft brown sugar

• Start with making the pastry. Place the egg, sugar & extract in a bowl and whisk together till combined.
• Sift the flour into the mixture and stir together till you end up with a breadcrumb like consistency. Make sure there are no bits of flour left in the bowl.
• Add in the cubed butter and cut the butter into the flour using a butter knife till it all comes together. I found that as it's been quite cold recently i managed to ' press ' the butter gently into the flour with the back of a wooden spoon.
• Remove from the bowl once combined and knead gently for a couple of seconds. You don't want to over knead it as you'll end up activating the gluten which will end up giving you hard pastry and not the crumbly texture you want with short crust.
• Wrap the pastry in cling film or baking paper and chill for at least 30 minutes before using it.
• Once chilled, roll the pastry out onto a well floured board, to about a centimetre thickness, and line a round 20cm baking with the pastry.
• Press the pastry in gently, making sure there are no air bubbles, prick the base lightly with a fork and place in the freezer for about 15 minutes. DO NOT cut off the excess pastry from the sides of the tin
• Remove the pastry from the freezer, line with greaseproof paper or foil, weigh the paper down with baking beans, uncooked rice or even lentils
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200c for 15 minutes. Remove the baking paper and bake for a further 15 minutes till lightly golden brown, leave to cool*
• Once cooled. carefully cut off any excess pastry round the sides and set aside 
• To make the filling, heat up the jam in a small bowl in the microwave in short 30 second bursts and pour into the case, spreading it out evenly with a butter knife.
• Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a small pan on a low heat together. Gently fold in the cornflakes making sure they're all coated in the caramel. Pour the cornflakes into the pastry case and even them out with a wet knife. Allow the tart to cool and for the cornflakes to set slightly .. and serve away 

* i found that when the case was baking in the oven, most of the excess pastry fell to the bottom of the oven and made quite a bit of mess. Place the baking tin onto a baking sheet/ tray, that way you'll save the bottom of your oven getting into a mess and save your time cleaning up.