DARING BAKERS do BAKEWELL TARTS…& I do a few HEARTS too!!

“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All of a summer day,
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts And took them quite away!”
Lewis Carroll

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.
Inspirations and References: Allan Davidson, Tamasin Day Lewis, Anton Edelmann, Jane Grigson, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver
A giant tart, medium tarts or little tartlettes
Mandatory element 1: Sweet Shortcrust Pastry. Yes, it’s a pie pastry.
Mandatory element 2: Frangipane – it’s rich, sweet and slightly luxurious.
Optional element: Home made jam or curd
My inspiration for the frangipane: Aran @ Canelle et Vanille
Rich, delicious & indulgent. That’s what the tart was… & more.
The pastry excellent & crisp.
The challenge providing an optional opportunity to make jam, something I love to do.
The timing just right for jam as stone fruit flood our market, & I bottled up some peachy memories in a jar. You can view my ‘Peach-Rosemary Jam’ recipe here. I posted it a short while ago.
A Wonderful Challenge!
I adapted the shortcrust recipe a bit as am vary of egg in pastry. It’s more of a psychological thing, & I cannot enjoy it if I knead egg into it. Nevertheless, with the family in mind, I amended the recipe slightly. The resultant pastry was still beautiful, light & crisp. The only little hassle I had was that it remained soft, actually far too soft to roll after a couple of hours in the fridge as our weather is HOT (42-44C) & not pastry rolling/making weather. I rested it in the fridge overnight & got up early the next morning & rolled it out. It still broke up a few times, but patchwork in this recipe works magic, & I got a decent base. We had it at room temperature the first day. Seconds were delicious served cold the next day, & the base remained crisp in the fridge. I think the frozen butter & quick, minimal handling of dough is key here. It’s a beautiful recipe, a keeper! Sweet shortcrust pastry
Ingredients:
as adapted from the recipe here
225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) vanilla sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
100g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
1 egg yolk
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
5ml (1 tsp) pure vanilla extract
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water
Method:
  • 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 yolk with the almond & vanilla extract 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 . I rested it overnight.

Frangipane
adapted from Aran @ Canelle et Vanille
Ingredients:
100gms unsalted butter, softened
100 powdered vanilla sugar
1 egg
1tsp almond extract
1tsp vanilla extract
100g ground almonds
30g all purpose flour

Method:

  • 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 egg and beat well one The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. 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. Use immediately or refridgerate for a day in a ziploc/baggie.
  • My Peach-Rosemary Jam recipe can be found here, as adapted from Martha Stewart.

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 acclimatised 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. The origins of the tart are not clear, however the generally accepted story is that it was first made by accident in 1820 when the landlady of the White Horse Inn left instructions for her cook to make a jam tart. The cook, instead of stirring the eggs and almond paste mixture into the pastry, spread it on top of the jam. When cooked the jam rose through the paste. The result was successful enough for it to become a popular dish at the inn, and commercial variations, usually with icing sugar on top, have spread the name. The name is believed to have come from a customer who decided that the tart was “baked well” thus the inn called it their “Bakewell” tart, a pun on the town of Bakewell and a well baked tart.

The tart tasted spectacular. An easy & delicious challenge for the month, with room for creativity in the filling once again. I was thrilled to see it because I have been enamoured with the name frangipane for ages. A romantic sounding name, I often wondered how it tasted. Have seen it used beautifully by Aran @ Canelle et Vanille, & that recipe stuck in my head. The moment I read the challenge, I was off to compare recipes. Aran’s recipe appealed to me primarily because it used fewer eggs, & marginally less butter. The portion was enough for 1 rectangular tart, though I had some pastry dough left sans filling.I could have left the pastry a few mms thicker to use all the dough. Made a few rustic heart shaped tart cases with the left over dough. I filled those with some left over Bavarian cream from my peach monster’s 10th birthday cake. I used the recipe for the Bavarian cream from Helen‘s post @ Tartlette here. These little hearts were divine too.

Thank you for another great challenge ladies – Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict & Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. I love being a Daring Baker, & the family loves being a Daring Baker family, because now they’re also interested in what the next challenge is going to be. The good thing is the pin-drop silence & tip-toeing around when they know it’s the baker being daring in the kitchen!! LOL!

To see how well the other bakers have done on the tart, do stop by at our blogroll here.

Posted by Deeba @ PAB

Published by

Deeba @ PAB

About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.

76 thoughts on “DARING BAKERS do BAKEWELL TARTS…& I do a few HEARTS too!!”

  1. Love love love the pics Deeba..I am tempted to try out this recipe.I feel,for the first time,the recipe is do-able and I might actualy try it;)

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  5. Great job! I love the setting you chose for your pictures…and those "left over" tarts are so cute!

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  7. Oh my goodness, Deeba, how beautiful! Wonderful choice of flavours, and so beautifully presented – you're a true Daring Baker! xxx

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  8. Simply lovely Deebs! I love the picture and the flavours you chose are just yum, yum, yum! Had some issues with the scheduling of my post but its finally up. Can you please FedEx some of your tart over…??

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  9. It's gorgeous! I loved this recipe, too – more than enough almonds to please this almond-lover. And peach-rosemary jam sounds so lovely!

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  10. I saw your preview pics on the DB forums and thought that it looked amazing Deeba! Great idea to use apricots too! 🙂

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  11. LOL – I'd forgotten that quote from Alice in Wonderland. A beautiful tart – the peaches are lovely and summery.

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  12. Such lovely, lovely tarts! I love everything about them. And your photos are really stunning! Well done!

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  14. Beautiful, Deeba. Love the tart and the pictures and I'm going to get myself a rectangular tart pan next! 🙂

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  15. This looks so beautiful. I love how you've added the apricots to the tart as well. Just gorgeous, as always.

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  16. LOVE LOVE LOVE everything – from the peach-rosemary jam to the gorgeous presentation of your tart, to your amazingly gorgeous photographs! As always, beautifully done and so creative!!

    Reply

  17. is really all you do … sigh … felicidades me because it was a disaster and your artwork

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  19. What beautiful tarts. I love the different sizes and shapes and your photos are just perfect.

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  20. Another beautiful dessert from you! This Bakewell looks scrumptious, too, with that peach jam! Yum!

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  22. Wow Deeba – It looks amazing. My shortcrust pastry was definitely not of rolling consistency. Not sure if you got my SMS, anyway it all turned out ok. Thanks.

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  23. I love ur step by step photos.. i know how hard it is to take picure while u are trying to cook/bake… ur efforts are well appreciated :D.. great job

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  24. I'm going to be dreaming of these beautiful peach tarts! I wish they were in my kitchen right now! How delicious!

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  25. That jam sounds totally amazing! I would never have thought of adding rosemary to peach jam, but it sounds awesome. 🙂

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  26. Long time no see 🙂
    Another gorgeous dessert! And of course your collages are always pretty.

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  28. Deeba, that looks wonderful! Minimal handling didn't happen with my crust. I was suprised I was able to roll it out considering how tough it was/1

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  29. As usual, your bakewell tart is another superb piece of art. Beautiful beautiful photos again! It's lovely to see so many pretty and tasty treats on your blog. Kudos!

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  30. I just love both of your presentations, sweet as ever! The peach-rosemary jam is, of course, fantastic- you've inspired me to make homemade jam! Delicious and inspiring!

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  31. Wow!
    Lovely tart!
    And those dried peaches… I'm addicted to those!
    What gorgeous images in this post, my eye is spoiled now! You are so creative with your photos. It's fantastic!

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  32. Your desserts are always the most beautifully decorated I've ever seen! Your bakewell tart is no exception, it's truly stunning. Peach and rosemary is a beautiful combination too.

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  33. OMGoodness! How long did piecing all those photos together take you???!!??? It was never ending (but gorgeous!) Please tell me you have a program that does it for you faster than just Photoshop. BEAUTIFUL presentation and photos. Fantastic!

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  37. Gorgeous tart…never thought to use rosemary with peach but it must be magical. Lovely photos, too.

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  40. This is so beautiful, the contrast between the delicate and professional rectangle tart and the heart-shaped "homey" ones, is really great. I am thrilled that you put fruit on top, I was tempted to do that but I was worried that I would be breaking with tradition. Next time, I won't worry!

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  41. Hello Deeba I stumbled upon your blog a few months ago through google and since then I have followed your blog almost every day and loved it. You have very good pictures and great background reading too. Today's post just elevated your blog to the next level. Thank you, your blog is what it says 'passionate about baking'.

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  45. Oh Deeba you have such a beautiful tart, lovely that you had your own peach rosemary jam for this one!

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  46. You never disappoint me with your creativity and talent. Gorgeous tarts and great job on the challenge!

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  47. Absolutely delicious, love the entire set-up, tart, pictures, presentation! Beautifully done as always.

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  48. Wow peach and rosemary jam sounds interesting. Your photos are amazing, and your tarts look wonderful. Congratulations 🙂

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  51. Wow! A masterpiece. The photos are gorgeous.
    Love all the elements; rosemary, peach, almond…
    LL

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  52. Your homemade jam sounds just mouth-watering! What a beautiful job. I just love the different shapes — but especially those hearts : they're adorable!

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  53. You always do fabulous things with these challenges.

    Thanks so much for participating.

    j

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  54. Your bakewell tarts are beautiful. Your site is beautiful and I love your photography. An inspiration to all of us.

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  55. WOW! I've never seen so many beautiful for one recipe!!! And they're all amazing! …you must have the genes of a pro, if you're not in the field! …I'm floored.

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  56. Oh the peach jam looks so divine and tantalising! And I love the love heart tarts… such a delightful and creative touch! Everything looks soo good! 🙂

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  58. GORGEOUS! the photos and the tarts look absolutely stunning. Love the peach rosemary jam. It's been a while since I stop by, you have made wonderful baked goods lately Deeba.

    Love the heart shaped pies. TOO CUTE!

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  59. Oh my god Deeba, you have really outdone yourself (not an easy thing to do, mind you) on this one! I am speechless.

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  60. Deeba your photos are absolutely stunning!! Your Bakewell Tart is just divine mmmmmmm I want to cut a slice and bite into it – oh what bliss that would be!!

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  63. Peach rosemary jam! Wow sounds and looks so delicious. Your tart is so pretty and tasty looking!

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  65. -So- beautiful, and what a creative flavor combination, too! I really like your take on this challenge! 🙂

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  66. This is just STUNNING! SOOO pretty and appealing to many senses! Oh my…and what a great way to use the leftover scraps!

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  67. Deeba really I think my dear you are a kitchen's fairy, because you are magic and make all beauty as a Fairy, look lovely I love it. xoxoxoxoGloria

    Reply

  68. MMMMMMM…OOOOOH,….AAAAHHHH?…I am amazed by your baking talents!!

    All of these tartes look awesomely fabulous!!!

    MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…!!!

    Reply

  70. Beautiful pictures as ever, Deeba. Well done for taking on the task despite the heat, and glad the family all enjoyed it.

    Reply

  73. I fell in love with your tart as soon as I saw it on the DBer site: it is so gorgeous and sooo mouthwatering. Beautiful job as always!

    Reply

  75. pics are SO pretty, I really can't stop staring!! i've always wanted to try this tart, but never have … sooooooo tempting!

    Reply

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