British · Dessert
Bakewell Tart
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 200 g plain flour
- 100 g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
- 30 g icing sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 25 ml ice water
- 2 g fine salt
- 150 g raspberry jam
- 125 g unsalted butter, softened to 20C (68F)
- 125 g caster sugar
- 125 g ground almonds
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 25 g plain flour, for the frangipane
- 3 ml almond extract
- 30 g flaked almonds
The skills inside
Pie crust & blind bakingRubbing fat into flour
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Rub the cold butter into the 200 g flour, icing sugar and salt to coarse crumbs, bind with the yolk and ice water, flatten to a disc and chill 1 hour. 60 min
- Roll to 3 mm, line a 23 cm tin, chill until hard, then blind bake at 190C (375F) for 20 minutes with beans and 8 minutes without, until the base is dry and biscuit coloured. 20 min
- Beat the softened butter and caster sugar pale, add the room temperature eggs one at a time, then fold in the ground almonds, 25 g flour and almond extract.
- Spread the jam over the base, level the frangipane on top, scatter the flaked almonds, and bake at 170C (340F) for 35 minutes to 40 minutes until risen, golden and springy at the centre. 35 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Pie crust & blind baking 29 recipes
- The shell goes into the oven cold and the oven is fully up to heat, so the structure sets before the fat has time to melt out of it.
- Lined and weighted right into the corners rather than heaped in the middle, so the sides are held against the tin as the fat softens.
- Docked where it is not meant to puff, and the base stays flat rather than lifting into a dome under its own steam.
- The weights come out and the base gets dry heat of its own before anything wet arrives. Pale and damp is not baked, and a filling will not finish it.
- The edges are set and coloured and the shell releases from the tin rather than gripping it.
Where it goes wrong It went in warm, or the weights only filled the middle. The sides slump down the tin before the pastry sets, so the case is shallower than it should be, the filling overflows it, and the base is still raw underneath: the soggy bottom, arrived at three ways at once.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
At the Table
- The Pour
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- Also Right
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- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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