Bakewell Tarts

The Bakewell tart is a simple and glorious creation – it bears little to no resemblance to the packaged ‘slices’ that taste like the plastic marzipan. There are no cherries in sight. It’s a simple, crumbly shortcrust pastry, some good shop-bought raspberry jam and frangipane, cakey mixture made with ground almonds. So essentially it’s cake wrapped in pastry. Awesome.

This recipe works well as individual ‘cafe-sized’ tarts as I’ve done it here – but I realise not everyone has such tins, so you can equally do tiny wee tarts in a bun tin or a massive tart in a pie dish. It’s up to you. You could always go to your local large supermarket and purchase them, they’re dead cheap. Just do a better job of not losing the bases than I have done, for I need to bake all my tarts on a baking tray.

Step 1 

First, preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4. Grease some loose-bottomed tart tins (or one big one) with plenty of butter, getting right into the edges

Step 2 

Start by making the pastry – weigh your flour and butter into a bowl and rub them together with your thumb and fingers. Keep going for a good few minutes – you want them like breadcrumbs. Alternatively, you can use a food processor.

Step 3

Add your cold water and use a knife to bring everything together. Use your hands to form it into a dough and wrap this in cling film. Rest in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, or up to a day.

Step 4 

Roll out your pastry case using plenty of flour to stop it sticking. If using wee tins, cut around a round object bigger than your tins to make discs. Lay these on top of your tin and tuck them in. You want at least 1cm hanging over the edge when baking. Prick your base with a fork. 

Step 5 

Tear off squares of baking paper and weigh these down with some loose change (or baking beans if you have them). Bake your cases for 20 minutes then remove the paper and coins and bake another 10 minutes.

Step 6 

Remove the cases from the oven and use a sharp knife to trim around the edges to give a professional finish. Add plenty of jam onto the bottom of the cases and spread it round with the back of a spoon.

Step 7 

Make the frangipane – this is easy, just add your butter, sugar, egg and almonds into a bowl and beat together until smooth. Layer this on top of your jam, scatter with almonds and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Enjoy!