A gypsy tart is a type of

tart A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with ...

made with

evaporated milk Evaporated milk, known in some countries as "unsweetened condensed milk", is a shelf-stable canned cow’s milk product for which approximately 60% of the water has been removed from fresh milk. French inventor, Nicolas Appert, the "father of ...

muscovado sugar Muscovado is a type of partially refined to unrefined sugar with a strong molasses content and flavour, and dark brown in colour. It is technically considered either a non-centrifugal cane sugar or a centrifuged, partially refined sugar accord ...

(though some varieties include light

brown sugar Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content or produced by t ...

), and

pastry Pastry refers to a variety of Dough, doughs (often enriched with fat or eggs), as well as the sweet and savoury Baking, baked goods made from them. The dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often descr ...

. It originates from the county of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

. The tart is extremely

sweet Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones, ...

and is, for many people, associated with school dinners. Although most commonly made with evaporated milk,

condensed milk Condensed milk is Milk#Cow, cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of sweetened condensed milk, to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condensed m ...

may be used in its place. This makes for a firmer and even sweeter tart, with a darker colour. A legend says that a woman invented the tart to feed hungry Romani (Gypsy) children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gypsy Tart British desserts English cuisine British pies History of Kent Isle of Sheppey British tarts Romani cuisine