Bakewell Tart
Building a dessert menu for our new British Bar & Grill in Twickenham was like taking a trip back through my childhood. So many choices of great classic dishes I wanted to put my stamp on, Sticky Toffee pudding, Apple pie and one of my absolute favourites Bakewell Tart. The great thing about this recipe is you can adapt it and have fun with it, place fruits in the frangipane when baking it or cover it in icing if you want too like a good old Mr Kipling. We keep ours nice and simple finishing with a dusting of icing sugar.
Ingredients
For the Tart Case
235g Plain Flour
90g Icing Sugar
30g Ground Almonds
120 Unsalted Butter
2 Whole Eggs
2g Salt
For the Frangipane
165g Icing Sugar
165 Caster Sugar
300g Unsalted Butter
330g Ground Almonds
30g Plain Flour
To Finish
100g Damson Jam (or a jam of your choice)
Icing sugar to garnish
METHOD
To make the pastry, sift the flour and icing sugar into a food processor.
Add the butter and mix in short blasts until breadcrumbs form. Add the eggs and continue mixing just until the dough comes together. Do not overmix! Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 3mm thick. Use it to line a 25cm tart tin with a removable base that is about 5cm deep. Trim the edge and prick the bottom of the pastry .Line the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans or rice. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the pastry is just set.
Remove the paper and beans, then return to the oven and bake for a further 4 minutes, or until crisp. Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl using a wooden spoon. Beat in the egg yolks, followed by the flour and ground almonds.
Spread your damson jam on the base of your pastry
Place your almond mix on top of the jam and bake for about 25 minutes until its nice golden on top
Dust with icing sugar and serve with ice cream or custard or just enjoy on its own.
