Daring Bakers do Bakewell Tart

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. so said the beginning of the post on the forum.

It was very nice to have a British recipe this time, we do puddings very well here if I do say so myself and by pudding I mean deserts in general. OK we don't do dainty pastries as well as the French but if you are looking for a good solid pudding to really round out a meal particularly in winter we have a wonderful range and a good few that work well at an afternoon tea too.

The Bakewell tart has three parts the pastry case, a jam layer and frangipane which is a sort of almond sponge. Traditionally the jam layer is strawberry or raspberry sometimes mixed with apricot but we were encouraged to make our own jam and while I like the jams mentioned above I had a craving for a curd. I planned to make lemon curd until I opened a recipe book and saw gooseberry curd and I happened to have exactly the right amount of gooseberries left from our recent fruit picking.

Obviously the pastry needed making gluten free and the frangipane recipe had a little flour in it too. However I remembered that there was a bakewell tart in Phil Vickery's Seriously Good Gluten-Free cooking so I decided to use his recipes.

The pasty is really very nice, rather short as it is made from corn flour and rice flour, though I had to replace half the corn flour with tapioca starch when i realised I didn't have a spare bag of cornflour as I thought ! He used lime juice as the liquid which worked very well and gave the pastry a nice kick. I ended up pressing the pastry into place as rolling it kept falling apart but my kitchen as pretty hot at the time which never helps pastry. It worked however even if it was a little rustic that way.

Part baked pastry with curd ready to spread out.

For the frangipane the only real difference ingredient wise between the official recipe and Phil's for frangipane was that his had one less egg and no flour so I used that ingredient mix.

Obviously by using gooseberry curd I did lose the visual bit where you see the jam layer when you cut the tart but it tasted fantastic and the hint of lime in the pastry with the curd and sweet almond topping worked very wel indeed.

Check out the host's blogs and Daring Baker blogroll to see other versions as well as full write ups of the original recipes.

Recipes

Pastry
100g rice flour
100g cornflour (corn starch) I used 50g corn flour, 50g tapioca starch
80g butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
juice of one small lime
finely grated zest of an orange

Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350 F/ gas 4

pur the flours and sugar in a mixer, mix well, add butter and blitz till resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the lime juice and zest and bring together. Forms a soft, some what crumbly dough. Either roll out quickly or press into a 24cm pie dish about 3cm deep. ine with greastproof paper and add baking beans. Bake for 15mins till lightly coloured.

Gooseberry curd (from Preserving self-sufficiency by Carol Wilson)
makes about 1kg (2lb 3oz)

450g (1lb) green gooseberries
2 Tbsp water
110g (4oz) unsalted butter
225g (8oz) caster sugar
3 large eggs

put gooseberries and water in a heavy based saucepan with the water as is (no need to top and tail). simmer gently till very soft, around 15 mins.

Remove from heat and push the mix through a sieve, reserve the puree for in a bit.

Put butter and sugar into a bowl and place over a pan of simmering, not boiling, water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Once the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved add the gooseberry puree.

Beat the eggs lightly and add to the bowl, stir. Cook over the simmering water until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 20-30 mins.

Pour ino warmed steralised jars, cover with waxed disks and leave till cold before sealing lids tightly.

Frangipane

25g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, melted
125g (4.5oz) caster sugar
2 eggs
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds

oven 190 C

Put eggs and sugar in a mixer and beat till very stiff (about 15 mins on high). Pour in melted butter and mix carefully. Next fold in the ground almonds. Spread 6 tbsp of curd onto the pastry base and spoon the mixture on top. Bake for 20-25 mins or until the sponge is cooked and the pastry light brown. Cool and serve.