Retro School Dinners Recipes

July in the UK has been a WASH OUT! Wet and windy with storms, so today I’m sharing some comforting Retro School Dinners Recipes.

Comfort food from the School Canteen

July in the UK has been a WASH OUT! Wet and windy with storms, so today I’m sharing some comforting Retro School Dinners Recipes.

From hearty puddings to pies and flans, I hope you will find some inspiration in the following recipes I’m sharing.

And, please DO pop back later on, as I have THREE more School Dinner’s Recipes to share with you……Chocolate Concrete with Pink Custard, School Dinner Cheese Flan and Butterscotch (Gypsy) Tart.

Retro School Dinners Recipes

• School Chocolate Sponge & Chocolate Custard

My recipe for School Chocolate Sponge & Chocolate Custard is a real blast from the past! It’s my version of a favourite school dinner’s pudding.

Big squares of chocolate sponge cake, always baked in a big roasting tin, were served with lashings of chocolate custard.

It was the best pudding ever on a wet, windy or cold school day, and the portions were always very generous too.

• School Jam Tart

Today’s Retro recipe for School Jam Tart is a huge hit with all the family. Remember those large jam tarts the school cooks use to make?

You’d be served a large slice of School Jam Tart, just warm from the oven, doused in hot custard. And, there was something very comforting about the warm jam tart when eaten with custard.

I suppose on paper it shouldn’t work – I mean who eats a jam tart with custard? But it was utterly delectable and a real favourite of mine when I had school dinners.

• Retro School Dinner Iced Tray Bake Cake

Anyone remember this recipe from school? Retro School Dinners Iced Tray Bake Cake was my favourite “after’s” or pudding as we used to call dessert.

Often served with the ubiquitous pink custard, I preferred mine without custard, as it was the buttercream icing I loved, along with the “hundreds and thousands”, known as sprinkles nowadays.

This tray bake “slab” cake is easy to make and even easier to eat, and makes a very generous 15 squares of cake, although I remember our school dinner ladies and cooks serving up giant slabs of this cake from huge trays of 24 portions or more

• Jam & Coconut Sponge with Pink Custard

This is a REAL blast from the past, Jam & Coconut Sponge with Pink Custard was one of my favourite school dinner “afters” as we used to call pudding.

And, my recipe shares a secret, for the pink custard, and how a friend who was a school cook used to make it. Suffice to say it’s not just normal custard with pink colouring, which won’t give you that school dinners pink custard flavour.

The recipe that she shared for REAL school dinner’s pink custard was made with a packet of strawberry blancmange!

I’m sure that they used tubs of the stuff and not just a sachet, as I did, but nevertheless, that’s the secret for the kind of pink custard I used to enjoy at school.

• Easy Cornflake Tart

This recipe for Easy Cornflake Tart is a blast from the past, as I used to love this when I was at school as part of school dinners “afters”.

My recipe is so easy as it uses ready-made shortcrust pastry, although you can use homemade pastry too. It uses simple store cupboard ingredients such as cornflakes, golden syrup, jam and sugar.

Serve the tart with custard for that very nostalgic taste of school dinners, either warm or cold.

• Sausage and Onion Puff Pastry Pie

ingredients from the freezer as well as the store cupboard. Based on a pie I used to enjoy for school dinners, in place of braised beef and onions, I have used sausages with fried onions.

The pie is made in a square deep baking tin, I used a square cake tin with great results, just like a school dinner pie and uses ready-made puff pastry.

This pie is fabulous when served warm, with mashed potatoes and peas or baked beans, as well as being just as delicious when its cold, served with salad, pickles, and chutney.

• Egg & Bacon Flan

My recipe for Egg & Bacon Flan is a family favourite. It’s a simple recipe that uses only 2 large eggs, 1/4 pint of milk (150ml), about 8 rashers of streaky bacon and 6 ounces (175g) of shortcrust pastry.

It’s my grandmother’s recipe, and my mum used to make it too. It’s NOT a quiche, a tart or a pie, but very much an old-fashioned flan! It’s perfect for hard times, as it uses very few ingredients, and unlike a quiche, there is no cheese in it. or onions for that matter.

But, what it lacks in a long list of expensive ingredients is more than made up for in taste. It’s quite simply absolutely delicious. Serve it warm with baby salad potatoes or cold with a salad, and don’t forget the pickles or chutney.

• Deep Dish Cheese & Tomato Flan

My latest recipe for Deep Dish Cheese & Tomato Flan was made for a summer’s evening Sunday Tea Tray supper.

Made in an oblong deep dish, like a school dinner flan, it yields lots of cheesy egg custard filling, with sweet seasonal tomatoes, and not too much pastry.

You could also use a deep, round pie dish too – it’s just that I had an oblong pyrex dish to hand, and I actually prefer square pieces of flan too!

I’m very keen on a good old-fashioned English flan. Why not a quiche you may ask? Having lived in France for many years, I see a quiche as being just eggs with lardons.

• Store Cupboard Cowboy Pie

This hearty store cupboard recipe is made with easily accessible pantry ingredients, such as tinned corned beef, tinned baked beans, onions, potatoes and BBQ sauce.

It’s a fabulous recipe that I used to make for my daughter when she was little, and she loved it. Topped with a cheesy mashed potato, serve this pie with steamed greens such as Savoy cabbage in the winter, or a crunchy salad in the summer.

If you want to overload on the carbs then serve this with crusty bread for saucy dipping! Cheap, cheerful and thrifty, but a real family favourite.

More School Dinners Recipes Coming Soon……

• Chocolate Concrete with Pink Custard
• School Dinner Cheese Flan (Served with Chips and Beans)
• Butterscotch Tart (Gypsy Tart) with Custard