My Great Aunt May made Cinnamon Oysters. They’re are not shellfish, they’re little tea cakes. Let me tell you about my Aunt May. She was a little old lady (she was always a little old lady as far as I was concerned as a child). She gave me chocolates for Christmas, she lived in a house that had a coal range and a rag rug. She always wore a buttoned up coat, hat and gloves when she went out. They all matched. She wore a very fine hairnet when it was windy. She was never without a handbag and a clean handkerchief.

This is my Aunt May and my Grandmother when they were girls. They remind me of cherubs. Aunt May is on the left.

She smiled a lot and called me “dear”. If I called in to see her she would always ask me if I wanted a sherry once I hit my teen years. She always had at least one cat. When she was younger she played the violin, she had one especially made for her since she was such a little wee lady. There were roses in her garden behind a wrought iron gate. She was never without a brooch on her jacket, normally studded with something sparkly and eye catching. She never had any children, she was a career woman. I seem to recall my mother telling me that the man she loved was killed in the war, and she just never found it in her heart to love anyone else. I loved my Aunt May, she was one of my favourite people in the whole world.

Cinnamon oysters were something that she made for an afternoon tea treat, well into her older years.

Cinnamon Oysters appeared in the 1940’s, a very typical little English style sponge cake with cream oozing from the middle. Lightly spiced with ginger and cinnamon they are a wonderful little mouthful to have with a cup of tea. Filled with lightly flavoured cinnamon cream they make an elegant afternoon tea treat. They are normally made in round bottomed patty pans. I suspect these are peculiar to New Zealand - although I could be wrong! They would be fine made in a muffin pan, although you would not get the characteristic oyster shape. This is the pan all floured and ready to go.

I have to say.. they are little devils to pry out of the pan. The recipe gives the instruction to grease, flour and sugar the pans, this gives a slightly crystallised coat on the outside of the sponge, but it also makes the little beggars stick! It gives the instruction to remove with a curved knife. Now I don’t know about you, but unless it’s a knife I’ve bent using for some non-kitchen related knife bending task, like forcing jammed drawers open or dredging toys up from behind the couch cushions…. I don’t have knives with curved blades! I did find a little grapefruit knife with a slightly curved blade, it was not particularly satisfactory though. You might want to skip the flour/sugar part, unless you are confident you can get them out.

These dainty little cakes come from the era of afternoon teas, and gentleman callers. Silk stockings and hats. If you feel like being a lady - whip up a batch of these light and airy morsels.

Cinnamon Oysters for a Real Lady

 Makes 12

For dusting pans

• 1 T flour
• 1 T caster (superfine) sugar

For cakes

• 2 eggs
• 3 Tblspn caster (superfine) sugar (45g)
• 1 Dspn golden syrup
• 2 Large Tblspn flour (60g)
• 1 tspn cinnamon
• 1/4 tspn baking soda
• 1 tspn ground ginger

Fresh cream for whipping to fill. Icing sugar (Powdered sugar) to dust.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease the pans and then dust with flour and caster sugar. Remove any excess.

Warm the mixing bowl and break in two eggs.

Beat the eggs until very light and fluffy.

Add in slightly warmed golden syrup and beat five more minutes until thick and ribbons form.

Sift dry ingredients and fold in very gently using a large metal spoon.

Place gently in the pans and bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from the pans while just slightly warm with a curved knife.

Split when cold and fill with cream - plain or laced with a small sprinkle of cinnamon. Dust with icing sugar.

Serve accompanied by tea in china cups and remember your best manners.

In loving memory of my dear Great Aunt May.

I’ve never actually liked Neenish tarts much. I know that’s a strange way to start a recipe that I am sharing with you, but I felt I needed to confess that up front. I have always liked the way they look though. Small single serving tarts half chocolate half white, or half pink and white - or sometimes half pink, half chocolate. They always looked nice sitting in the bakery window displays. However when I bought one I was always disappointed.

Normally dry shortcrust pastry filled with a mock cream and jam. Occasionally I’d try again hoping that it would be better, and I’d strike one that had a condensed milk type filling, which was a moderate improvement on the mock cream, but still nothing to write home about.

I happened upon discussion thread with a person asking for a recipe for Neenish tarts like their mother used to make, the filling they described sounded more like a lemon flavoured pastry cream. That interested me, so I thought I would give something along those lines a go and see what the result was.

Neenish tarts are fairly specific to Australia and New Zealand and I am not sure if they are even known in other parts of the planet. This version is quite delicious, although I think a little fiddly to make. But if you have the time then give it a try, they are a very old fashioned afternoon tea treat that people can’t help but say “Mmmmmmm” over when they have that first bite. You can just picture these on a tiered china cake stand sitting in among the creamy sponge drops, cucumber sandwiches and scones.

Neenish Tarts with Lemon Crème Patisserie

No one is really sure how these originated and where they got their name, there are all kinds of urban legends around them. Including one about a Ruby Neenish - who has vanished into the mists of time - no record of her existing at all. I suspect Ruby Neenish is a little like Spiderman .. just a figment of someone’s imagination. The first recipe for these was published in 1929.

Recipe makes 6  10cm/4 inch tarts.

Pâte sablée (sweet short crust)

This pastry recipe makes a lot more than you will need to make the Neenish tarts. I simply froze the remainder for another day to use for a sweet full sized tart. It will make enough for two full sized tarts with a little left over for six Neenish tarts.

• 250g/9oz butter
• 200g/7oz icing sugar
• pinch of salt
• 500g/just over 1lb of flour
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 Tblspns cold water

You can make this in the food processor or by hand. Cream together the butter sugar and salt, rub or pulse in the egg yolks until the mixture just starts to come together looking like breadcrumbs. Add the cold water. Gently bring together and split pastry into two, forming two disks. Wrap and chill in the fridge for one hour.

You can freeze remaining pastry at this point, you will need roughly 250 grams of the pastry for your Neenish tarts.

When making pastry - it benefits from as little handling as possible. This will keep it flaky and light and reduce shrinkage.

Line your tart pans (I used 10 cm/4 inch tart pans with a removable base) and place in the freezer.

Lemon Crème Patisserie

• 2/3 cup of whole milk
• 1 2 inch piece of vanilla bean
• 1 2 inch long one inch wide piece of lemon rind
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3 Tblspns sugar
• 1 Tblspn cornflour/cornstarch

Pour the milk into a small saucepan, scrape in seeds from the vanilla bean and add the bean and the lemon rind to the milk. Bring to a simmer - remove from the heat.

Whisk the yolks, cornflour and sugar together in a bowl. Very gradually whisk the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Do this a little at a time whisking continuously, you don’t want to cook your yolks.

Add back into the pan again and whisk over a medium heat until the custard thickens. Transfer to a bowl to cool and cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin forming. When you are ready to use your pastry cream, remove the vanilla bean and rind and whisk lightly to remove any lumps. (can be made 2 days ahead)

Assembling your tarts

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F

Put your lined tart pans in the preheated oven for roughly 10-15 minutes. Check half way through cooking and pierce a small hole in each base with a skewer to remove any air from under the tart base. Cook until golden. Cool on a rack in the tins, remove from the tins when cool.

Fill with cooled pastry cream - making sure the top is level and ice with icing of your choice.

I chose to use royal icing for these and it was not a good choice honestly. The pastry cream was moist and consequently the royal icing started to weep after about 20 minutes. If I was doing this again I would most likely use a simple confectioners sugar icing - I suspect it would hold up better.

To ice your Neenish tarts - ice one half first spreading from the centre to the outside - allow to set for 10 minutes or so before icing the other half.

Despite the issues that I had with the icing on these, they were a sweet and light tart that everyone really enjoyed eating. You could also experiment with a mock cream and raspberry jam filling or perhaps try different flavourings for your pastry cream, a rum version of these is quite common also.

If you are having a last minute tea shower like my imaginary friend Ruby Neenish - these are not the tarts to make since they require cooling in between stages. But if you have a little time on your hands and would like to have an old fashioned afternoon tea treat, then these are just the ticket!