“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King.

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:— 

“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

  All on a summer day:

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

    And took them quite away!”

Have you ever stopped to count all the food that Alice encounters in her Wonderland adventures? Tea, bread and butter, mysterious cookies and potions, magic mushrooms... Everywhere she ends up there's something to taste, granted that someone will always pay the consequences, and this time the repercussions of an eaten - or stolen - meal are incredibly serious. But did you know that this poem at the beginning of the chapter, introducing the absurd trial and its delirious testimonies, was actually a nursery rhyme by an anonymous author, published in the European Magazine in 1782? The nursery rhyme, thankfully, had a happy ending with the Knave of Hearts giving back the tarts to their rightful owner without losing his head!

But what would the Queen of Heart's tarts taste like?

Let's go back to 1865, the year Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published. At that time, the word "tart" didn't have the same connotation as today: now, the first kinds that come to mind are sweet, dessert type of pastries. But in the 1800s tart was just any baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base, with an open top not covered with pastry, usually savory. Custards in pastry containing meat, fish, fruit or jam were a staple of Victorian English cuisine. Two of the most famous sweet versions of this dish were the Epiphany tarts (very intricate jam pastries) and the Manchester tarts (filled with a custard made with bread crumbs). The original Manchester tart is a variation on an earlier recipe, the Manchester pudding, which was first recorded by the Victorian cookery writer Mrs Beeton.

When I think of Alice in Wonderland, though, my mind goes straight to the Mad Hatter and March Hare's tea party and I wonder whether the Queen's tarts would have looked good on their table, between all the teapots and teacups. So my version of those tea party delicatessen would be very simple sweet vanilla custard tarts, with fresh fruit. Let's make them!

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 160 gr all-purpose flour

• 125 gr unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

• 3 tablespoons ice water

• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest                  

 For the Custard:

• 100 gr granulated sugar

• 70 gr all-purpose flour

• a pinch of fine salt

• 500ml whole milk

• 2 large egg yolks

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract or fresh vanilla seeds

‘There was a momentary lull, broken by Hannah, who stalked in, laid two hot turnovers on the table, and stalked out again. These turnovers were an institution, and the girls called them ‘muffs’, for they had no others and found the hot pies very comforting to their hands on cold mornings.

Hannah never forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other lunch and were seldom home before two.’

Oh, how conforting would be to hold one of Hannah Mullet's warm apple turnovers, and enjoy the smell of cinnamon and butter, on these cold winter mornings of this crazy pandemic times!  

Hannah is the March's family housekeeper, but she is more like a family member. She has helped raising all four sisters, she has been a friend through tough times, and I'm sure her cooking skills were most apreciated by Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth...

But you'll be wondering: the book only mentions "turnovers", how do you know they had an apple filling? A turnover can be any puff pastry pie, both sweet or savoury, but my guess is that they were in fact apple "pies" because of the time and the setting of the book.

First of all, it is said that the March family's house and its surroundings are based on Louise May Alcott's own home, the Orchard House, now a historic house museum, where she lived with her three sisters. Both the real and the fictional houses were surrounded by said orchard, and it is not difficult to imagine that it was made up mostly by apple trees, apple being the most popular and widely cultivated fuit at the time.

Moreover, apple turnovers were very popular during the late 1800s: in the second half of the 19th century, numerous recipes for them appeared on famous cooking books, such as Cassell’s Dictonary of Cookery published in 1874.

"Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.