School Pudding Gypsy Tart

This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

I’m willing to place a bet that most of you reading this will be doing so out of curiosity and asking yourselves, “So what is this “school pudding gypsy tart”? I’ve never heard of it!”. Well, it’s a sweet, caramel type tart that’s absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I’ll be honest and say that it doesn’t look much ???? but place a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and you’ll be in heaven!

But what about the name. Well, the “gypsy tart” is so-called, so the tale goes, when, an aristocratic lady in Kent, United Kingdom, saw some undernourished and unhealthy gypsy children playing in the street and decided to make this sugary sweet tart to feed them. Regards the “school pudding” prefix, gypsy tart used to served regularly to children as a pudding in some southern UK schools. You can still buy it at bakeries in the County of Kent in the UK.

There you go, you learn something new every day… So let’s makes one…

1. Gather the ingredients together

There are two parts to this school pudding gypsy tart recipe. First the pastry and, second, the filling.

The pastry is a simple sweet short pastry and needs just flour, icing sugar, egg yolk, lemon juice, and a touch of water.

The filling is even easier with just evaporated milk, condensed milk, and muscovado sugar.

2. Make the pastry for the school pudding gypsy tart

To make the pastry start by sieving the flour and icing sugar into a bowl. Then add the butter. You can also turn the oven on now to preheat at 200C / 180C Fan / 400F.

The butter and dry ingredients need to be crumbled together. This can be done by rubbing all of the ingredients together with your hands, or in a food processor on low speed. Either way, the end result should look something like this…

Now, make a well in the center of the crumble and add the egg yolk, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of water.

Mix this together by hand until the pastry is formed. If the pastry is dry then add another tablespoon of water but be careful. Adding too much water will make the pastry too wet.

When the pastry is formed place kitchen film on top and leave it in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Once the pastry has firmed, roll it out to around 3mm thickness and then place on a tart tin remembering to leave a 1-inch overlap for the pastry to shrink. Dock the base of the pastry with a fork. Keep any excess pastry for repairs later.

Next, cover the base with baking paper and fill with baking beads or dry rice. Blind bake the base for around 15 minutes and then remove the base from the oven. Discard the baking paper and beads and carefully break away the overlapping pastry. This is also the time to make any repairs in the pastry base with the excess pastry. Just fill any breakages so the base is fully covered in pastry.

Finally, place the base back in the oven and bake until the bottom start to color. Then, remove from the oven to cool.

3. Make the filling

The filling is easy to make. Simply take the evaporated milk, condensed milk, and muscovado sugar and add them all to a mixing bowl or food processor.

Next, mix on a gradually increasing speed for 8 minutes until the mixture has increased in volume.

Finally, pour the mixture into the base. The school pudding gypsy tart is now ready for baking.

4. Bake the school pudding gypsy tart

With the filling now in the base place the tart on a baking tray and then in the oven. Bake for around 30 minutes or until the middle of the tart wobbles slightly. Keep checking for this after the tart has been in the oven for 20 minutes. After baking the tart should look something like this…

And that’s all there is to it. Leave to cool and there you have it. School pudding gypsy tart. Not the healthiest of puddings but when you’re a child running around for 8 hours a day I suppose a little extra sugar is no big deal ????. Serve it with some delicious vanilla ice cream and then sit back and prepared for an evening of guilt! ???? Yum!

I hope you enjoyed this post. A trip down memory lane for a few and I new pudding recipe for many. If you’d like to be kept up to date with all of The Yum Yum Club’s recipes just sign up for our newsletter at the top of this page. Otherwise, you can always follow us on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram by clicking the link.

As always, many thanks for reading and until next time… Steve.

Nutritional values

Printable recipe

Steve Deacon

Founder & Writer

Hi, I'm Steve, founder of The Yum Yum Club. After years in the corporate rat race traveling the world, my wife Jen and I settled back in the UK to follow our true passion: great food and wine. Having worked in restaurant kitchens in my youth, I share honest home-cooked recipes, kitchen timing tips, and culinary discoveries.

View all posts by Steve Deacon →