Bakewell Tart

I first discovered Bakewell Tarts while watching the Great British Baking Show. It was a technical challenge, where bakers are given a pared down recipe that they have never seen before and have a short period of time to bake the dish. This tart has a layer of raspberry jam at the bottom, followed by a layer of frangipane, which is an almond filling made with almonds, egg, and sugar. It is then topped with a feathered icing topping. I personally love almond flavored desserts, so I was super excited to try making the tart!

I have made a few changes from the original Mary Berry recipe that was used in the baking show. The jam calls for jam sugar which I have never seen in grocery stores near me, so I decided to just use regular sugar and add chia seeds to it. Chia seeds thicken the jam and they just look like more raspberry seeds! The jam was also crazy sweet so I reduced the sugar and added lemon zest for a brighter taste. Another thing I changed was the butter content. I found that the crust had way too much butter in it, so I reduced the amount by a few tablespoons and it was so much better.

All though there are lot of components to the tart, it is not an extremely complicated recipe. I hope you all try making it!

Adapted from this one

Ingredients

For the crust:

225g flour, plus more for dusting

120g unsalted butter, chilled

25g powdered sugar

1 large egg, beaten

For the jam:

200g raspberries, fresh or frozen

150g sugar

1 Tbsp chia seeds

Zest of 1 medium lemon

For the frangipane:

150g unsalted butter, softened

150g superfine or baker’s sugar

150g ground almonds (almond flour)

1 tsp almond extract

For the glaze:

300g powdered sugar

1 tsp almond extract

pink food coloring

3 Tbsp water

Directions
For the jam, place the raspberries in a small deep-sided saucepan. Add the sugar, chia seeds, and lemon zest and bring to the boil over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Increase the heat and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and pour into a shallow glass container. Let it cool and set.

To make the pastry, place the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the icing sugar. Add the egg and water, mixing to form a soft dough. Turn out the crust onto a piece of parchment paper. Roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Press into a 9 or 10 inch fluted tart tin and chill for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 390°. Line the crust with parchment paper and fill with pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and cook for a further 5 minutes to dry out the base.

To make the Frangipane, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the ground almonds, egg and almond extract and mix together.

To assemble, spread 4 Tbsp of jam onto the bottom of the par-baked crust, then spread the frangipane on top with an offset spatula.

Change the oven temperature to 355° and bake for 25–35 minutes, until golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave on a wire rack to cool.

For the icing, in a small bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, almond extract and water. It should be a thick but spreadable icing. If it is too thick, add more water 1 tsp at a time.

Place 3 Tbsp of the icing in a separate bowl and add the pink food coloring gel to make a light pink icing. Spoon the icing into a small piping bag fitted with a No. 2 plain nozzle. You can also put it into a plastic bag and cut a tiny bit off one corner.

When the tart has cooled, spoon the icing on top, spreading evenly. Pipe parallel lines of pink icing over the white icing, then drag a cocktail stick through the line to create a feathered effect. Leave to set. Slice and serve.

Enjoy!