A neenish tart (or neenish cake) is a

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 a

pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...

base and a filling consisting of sweet

gelatine Gelatin or gelatine (from la, gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also ...

-set

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

, mock cream,

icing sugar Powdered sugar, also called confectioners' sugar, or icing sugar, is a finely ground sugar produced by milling granulated sugar into a powdered state. It usually contains between 2% and 5% of an anti-caking agent – such as corn starch, po ...

paste, or lemon and sweetened condensed milk mixture, with dried icing on the top of the tart in two colours. The addition of a layer of raspberry jam is a common recipe variation. The colours used for the icing are usually some combination of brown, white, and pink. They are almost exclusively sized as individual servings, 60–80 mm in diameter. The tart was originally created in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and is mainly found there and in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...

."neenish tart n."
–

Australian Oxford Dictionary The ''Australian Oxford Dictionary'', sometimes abbreviated as ''AOD'', is a dictionary of Australian English published by Oxford University Press.Warden, Ian "Some Balltearers For The Scrabble Board" 27 October 1999 Canberra Times P7 The ''AOD'' ...

. Accessed 23 May 2011. The origin of the name "neenish" is unknown. A column in the ''

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...

'' attributed the name to a woman named Ruby Neenish, but this was later revealed to be a prank. Alternative names such as ''nenische'' (recorded in 1929) and ''nienich'' (recorded in 1935) suggest a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

origin, although ''neenish'' was known before the alternatives, suggesting these names were to give a "continental" flavour to the tart.Oxford Word of the Month: Neenish Tarts
"Nenish cakes" appear in Sydney newspaper advertisements as early as 1895, and a reference to neenish tarts is found in a recipe in the ''

Sydney Mail Sydney Mailmay refer to: * Sydney Mail (train service), a train service that existed between 1888 and 1972 going from Brisbane to Wallangarra, where passengers would transfer at Wallangarra for the Brisbane Limited. * The Sydney Mail, an Australi ...

'' in November 1901. A recipe published in Launceston's ''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'' in January 1903 is very similar. Both recipes used an almond-based pastry and a filling comprising a "very thick custard of eggs and milk thickened with cornflour". The top of the tart consisted of coffee and vanilla icing in equal halves. Another early printed recipe was in ''Miss Drake's Home Cookery'' published in 1929, calling for

filling set with

and pink christabelle and white icing on top. A 1932 recipe in ''Miranda's Cook Book'' calls for custard filling and chocolate and white icing.''Miranda's Cook Book'', "Neinich Tart"
reproduced by Andrew Turpin. The lemon-flavoured version of the tart most familiar to New Zealand residents is found in the ''

Edmonds Cookery Book The ''Edmonds Cookery Book'' is a recipe book focusing on traditional New Zealand cuisine. It was first published as ''The Sure to Rise Cookery Book'' in 1908 as a marketing tool by baking powder manufacturer Thomas Edmonds (today part of Goodm ...

''. It includes a filling made from butter, icing sugar, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice, set in a sweet short pastry crust and topped with half standard white icing and half chocolate (cocoa added) icing. In Australia the term

pineapple tart Pineapple tart is a small, bite-size tart filled or topped with pineapple jam, commonly found throughout different parts of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia (''kue nastar''), Malaysia (Baba Malay: ''kueh tae'' or ''kuih tair'', Malay language: ' ...

often refers to a variation on the Neenish Tart, with

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

jam below the filling, and

passionfruit ''Passiflora edulis,'' commonly known as passion fruit, is a vine species of passion flower native to southern Brazil through Paraguay and northern Argentina. It is cultivated commercially in tropical and subtropical areas for its sweet, seedy f ...

icing.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Australian desserts Tarts Custard desserts

See also

References