Bakewell tart is a British classic and consists of shortcrust pastry and a layer of jam topped with frangipane and flaked almonds. This awesome recipe (based on one by Mary Berry) is surprisingly straightforward to make. If you have never made pastry before don’t worry as it is pretty simple here, and if the rolling out isn’t going great you can just cheat and press the pastry in to the tin with your hands. Or you can buy ready made shortcrust pastry instead.
The filling really is just a case of mixing everything up and leaving it to puff up and get crunchy during the baking. Then feeling really snazzy when it comes out of the oven.
The bakewell tart looks gorgeous and tastes authentic. Eat with cream or ice cream!
Bakewell tart
For the shortcrust pastry
175g plain flour
75g chilled butter
2-3 tbsp cold water
(or buy ready made shortcrust pastry from the shop)
For the filling
2 tbsp raspberry/strawberry jam
125g butter, soft (I soften mine in the microwave)
125g caster sugar
125g ground almonds
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
50g flaked almonds
To make the pastry, measure the flour into a bowl and mix in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the water, mixing to form a soft dough. Attempt to roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin on a lightly floured work surface and use to line a 20cm flan tin or similar. If the rolling out doesn’t go too well just use your hands to press the dough to the bottom and around the edges of the tin, covering up any cracks. Leave in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 (180C fan). Line the pastry case with foil and fill to the top with baking beans. If you don’t have baking beans use dried beans or rice instead (this is to stop the pastry puffing up). Bake blind for about 15 minutes, then remove the beans and foil and cook for a further five minutes to dry out the base.
For the filing, spread the pastry generously with jam. Melt the butter in a pan, take off the heat and then stir in the sugar. Add the ground almonds, egg and almond extract. Pour into the flan tin and sprinkle over the flaked almonds.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until puffed up and golden brown on top. If the almonds seem to be browning too quickly, cover the tart loosely with foil to prevent them burning. Eat with cream or ice cream.
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