farmhouse

This dish probably started being baked by Irish firesides in its present form about three hundred years ago. It's now baked on halogen and gas and convection cooktops all over the country whenever a home chef wants to make a quick and easy dessert that can with equal aplomb appear cool and demurely sliced on the tea trolley, or as the crown of a country-style supper, piping hot and drizzled with thick Irish cream.

The potato would have been a relatively late addition to the equation. "Filled bannocks" of this kind were being made with merely flour-based doughs in the time of the ancient Celts, who valued the apple not only as a gift and symbol of the Gods, but as one of the relatively few fruits that grows reliably in the Irish climate.

Please note: because of the delicacy of the potato crust, this tart sometimes resists coming out of the pan in one piece (like the example in the background of our picture, which tastefully tore itself in three during removal). The recipe suggests some ways around this problem.

Click on "read more" for the recipe.