PASSPORTS at the ready and fasten your seat belts!

We’re off on our travels this week across the Bronte hills of Haworth and over the borders to Manchester, a city certainly more famous for its sport than its cuisine.

I’ve never really understand the pointless rivalry with Lancashire.

I like to think of myself as a Northerner, after all, and it's just a set of arbitrary lines drawn on a map in my opinion.

But in terms of food a native Yorkshire person does know a thing or two about baking, so does that give us the all-important edge over our Lancashire neighbours?

Putting pride to one side for a minute, as the last thing I want to do is re-start the War of the Roses, I would like to honour the Manchester tart this week.

After all, it did feature on so many school dinner menus every week until the late 70s.

I'm guessing it showed up so often because a dried-out pastry case, a thin layer of jam and some cheap instant custard were cheap to source and make for the dinner ladies.

It could easily satisfy us hungry herds of kids queuing up in line with their dinner tickets. “No running in the corridors!” I do recall Mrs Andrews shouting.

Making a Manchester tart is relatively simple. The assembly part only takes a few minutes combining custard and raspberry jam into a sweet pastry case topped off with roasted coconut.

Sliced bananas can also be added, which does make a great option for the kids if you're making this for the whole family.

I would strongly advise you to allow setting time of the custard for that all-important firmer Manchester tart, but don't be tempted to use a can of ready-made custard as it will not work.

Note the thickness of the custard can be varied using a little less milk following the manufacturer’s instructions.

I'm not going to get into a heated debate about pastry with this recipe, so save yourself some time and buy a packet of shop-bought pastry, as long as you have enough to cover the base and sides of whatever dish you are using.

Raspberry jam is traditionally used. I hate the pips, but feel free to use whatever favourite flavoured jam you may have.

Looking back, the Manchester tart was probably a winter pudding, but you can serve it cold, as long as you are hungry and hankering for a big bowl of pure comfort. So this is still a great all year-round dessert to make.

I don't know about you, but it's strange to think when I was a young boy growing up all I wanted to be was an adult, yet as soon as I was an adult I wanted to turn the clocks back to my childhood.

If this classic pud doesn't take you back to those happy times then I don't know what will!