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.

Bakewell Tart??? Apparently it’s an English thing, but I had never heard of it (despite being Canadian and thus still part of the Empire), nor had Mr. Rabbit who, despite being American, has an Anglophile streak (he reads Wodehouse, has a relationship with a British tailor, and begs for a sticky toffee pudding every birthday). But we both love almonds and I was excited about experimenting with this challenge. 

This recipe has three elements: a shortbread crust (which Jasmine and Annemarie challenged us to construct by hand), a jam or fruit preserve layer, and a frangipane (an almond cream filling).

We had the option of making a large pie-shaped tart or smaller variations and I choose cupcake-sized tartlets using regular muffin tins. Since we are pas de deux, I also chose to half the recipe.

The shortbread crust made me anxious. Nothing about the recipe seemed particularly challenging, but when I rolled it out it was awfully dry, I couldn’t make it as thin as I wanted, and I had to patch up various holes and bald spots. I took comfort in the fact that our hosts reported that leftover dough could be used to bake cookies since it seemed that my rustic shells were basically cookie bowls due to their thickness.

I chose a raspberry filling. I did not want to make a jam recipe because I didn’t want to commit to the time and labour, and also because I was admittedly scandalized by the fruit-to-sugar ratio in most formulas (ack!). I appealed to the Daring Bakers’ Forum for a simple fruit spread recipe that could still hold its own as a substitute for jam (I was scared that most fruit sauce recipes I was finding on the Internet would simply result in a runny mess), and the super-fantastic Audax Artifex responded with a quick-and-dirty formula for fruit filling (which I have reproduced below). I chose to use raspberries, although if you check out the DB blogroll you’ll find some very imaginative and appetizing combinations using mangos, strawberries (wonderfully in season for us North Americans), lemon curd, chocolate, corn jam, figs, and plenty of other variations on delicious.

The frangipane came together fairly easily. The one problem I encountered was sourcing ground almonds or almond flour. Four stops later, I decided to build my own in the food processor. This proved desperately easy, and I’ll never bother event attempting to look for ground almonds ever again.

Assembly was relatively easy (although I did run into the aforementioned difficulties rolling the dough), and things looked quite promising going into the oven. 

I poured a glass of champers and settled down to write this report while awaiting my results. When I went to check on my tarts, the kitchen was positively filled with the almost aphrodisiac scent of almond and things were looking pretty good.

** A special note to M — do note the champagne flute in this photo. M. was disappointed that I had not ostensibly succumbed to alcoholism in the last lap of the Daring Cooks dumpling challenge. I had not realized prior to her complaint that I’m always boozing by the last few shots in my posts. So, here you go!! 

As for the final results?

Merely OK. Everything looked relatively good - the crust worked surprisingly well,and I was very pleased with my fat and fluffy frangipane… but when we tasted the tarts it just seemed that something was wrong.

Not enough sweet, not enough kick, not enough delicious. I thought that I was going to love this recipe, but I was wrong. Admittedly, the error might have been mine. The fact that we were given the recipe in measurements turned into a gigantic math problem for me (how much does sugar weigh? icing sugar?). I consulted the Internet, and I checked my calculations twice, but the meh flavour of my tarts seemed to suggest that something in the sugar ratio had gone wrong and I think that this was probably a by-product of my inability to suitably measure my ingredients or to calculate things-and-stuff correctly. My tarts weren’t exactly bad, but they’re not particularly tempting either. Deflating. 

Two weeks ago, Mr. Rabbit and I saw some Bakewells at the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto (the glazed, maraschino-in-the-middle variety). We thought about buying them, but decided to wait. Next time, I’m going back to taste where it all went wrong.

ADDENDUM: Mr. Rabbit is an engineer, and he is very good at fixing things. This morning he fixed the Bakewells left over from last night. He smeared his breakfast tart with a good layer of from-a-jar jam and the jammedy sweetness was exactly what the tart needed. The problem wasn’t actually my math skills (as I’d previously suspected), rather I unwittingly short-circuited my recipe by playing food police when I decided to use a reduced-sugar fruit spread instead of a traditional jam. Silly Rabbit. With the added sweet the recipe tasted exactly like I’d imagined. Gorgeous. So I will most definitely make this recipe again. And we think it gets better on Day Two.

And now for that recipe…

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding ** Note that our hosts report on ongoing debate about whether this dessert is properly a tart or   a pudding… (it’s a technical thing).  Makes one 23cm (9” tart).


Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)


Resting time: 15 minutes


Baking time: 30 minutes


Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)


Bench flour
250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz))

Jam or curd, warmed for spreadability


One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)


One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart


- Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatized for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

- Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

- Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

- The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

- When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Sweet shortcrust pastry

Prep time: 15-20 minutes


Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)


Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour


30g (1oz) sugar


2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g

4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)


2 (2) egg yolks


2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)


15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

- Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

- Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

- Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Jasmine’s notes:
• I make this using vanilla salt and vanilla sugar.
• If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract

Frangipane

Prep time: 10-15 minutes


Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened


125g (4.5oz) icing sugar


3 (3) eggs


2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract


125g (4.5oz) ground almonds


30g (1oz) all purpose flour

- Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Annemarie’s notes:
• Add another five minutes or more if you’re grinding your own almonds or if you’re mixing by hand (Heaven help you).

Quick Fruit Spread (Recipe Compliments of Audax Artifex)

1 cup of canned/frozen berries drained
1/8 tsp almond extract (optional)


1 tbsp sugar


2½ tsp cornstarch (or arrowroot)


- For filling, combine berries in large bowl (if a smooth filling is required then purée berries and strain if using berries with hard seeds like raspberries).

Posted on June 27th, 2009 by rabbit
Filed under: Uncategorized