Giant Bakewell Tart
Combining light almond sponge, crisp biscuity base and sweet raspberry jam, Bakewell Tart is a great British classic and deserves to be baked on a grand scale. And with this very much in mind, we are proud to introduce Tala’s Performance Bakeware Fluted Flan dish! With proportions big enough to make sure that everyone gets a slice!
Because this flan dish is big, you will ideally need two lots of baking beans to weigh the pastry down during baking. I use a food processor fitted with the chopping blade to make the pastry super quickly, but if you prefer to work by hand you can rub the butter into the dry ingredients first with your fingers then add the yolks and water and mix with a wooden spoon.
Ingredients:
For the pastry:
275g plain flour, plus extra for dusting 3 tbs ground almonds
3 tbs icing sugar
100g salted butter, chilled and cubed 2 medium free-range egg yolks
4 tbs cold water
For the filling:
3 tbs seedless raspberry jam, plus extra for decorating 200g caster sugar
200g salted butter, softened
3 free-range eggs, medium size
1⁄2 tsp almond essence
160g ground almonds
40g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Handful flaked almonds, plus extra for decorating
Drizzle decoration (optional):
100g icing sugar 3 tsp cold water
Equipment:
Tala Performance Bakeware fluted flan dish Kitchen foil (as wide as possible)
Baking beans (two sets)
Equipment for optional drizzle decoration:
- Place butter, flour, ground almonds and icing sugar in the food processor and blitz briefly to fine crumbs.
- Add the egg yolks one by one, blitzing between each addition. Then add the water, tablespoon by table spoon, stopping as soon as the mixture clumps together.
- Remove the chopping blade from the food processor and turn out the dough onto the work surface. Gather the dough into a ball and refrigerate for about twenty minutes.
- Set the oven temperature to 170 Celsius fan(338Fahrenheit).
- On a surface dusted with plain flour, roll out the chilled dough into a large circle with thickness of about 3mm. The circle should be bigger than the flan dish by some way.
- Line the dish with pastry by carefully lifting the pastry over the dish and gently pressing it into place. Make sure the pastry is pressed into every flute in the wall of the dish.
- Using kitchen scissors, trim the pastry all the way around so that it sits about 3mm higher than the top edge of the dish (to allow for some shrinkage in the oven).
- Place the dish in the fridge to chill for about an hour(longer if you have time).
- Tear a large piece of kitchen foil and place inside the dish, crumpling the edges all the way round to make a sort of nest to contain the baking beans.
10.Tip in the baking beans. Swirl the dish to evenly distribute the beans, and bake for 20 minutes. Carefully remove the beans and bake again for another 10 minutes until the pastry looks dry.
- Leave the pastry case in the dish and allow to cool for five minutes. 12.Spoon the jam into the bottom of the pastry case and use the pastry brush to paint it evenly over the base of the tart. The residual heat of the pastry should help the jam to flow a little.
Now for the filling!
- Turn the oven temperature down to 160degrees Celsiusfan (320 Fahrenheit).
- In the large mixing bowl, cream the butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, followed by the almond essence. Finally fold in flour, ground almonds and baking powder
- Drop the mixture over the raspberry jam in small ‘dollops’ spaced evenly around the dish. Then take a mini palette knife and gently smooth and level the mixture.
- Scatter the almonds over the top and bake for 40 minutes, turning halfway through.
- Allow to cool in the tin before serving.
- For the optional drizzle decoration, take a small mixing bowl and mix the icing sugar with the water.
- Transfer half of the drizzle icing to the second small mixing bowl, then add a 1⁄4 teaspoon measure of seedless raspberry jam and mix again to a pale raspberry pink colour.
- Transfer both icings into separate disposable piping bag and snip the tip off each bag with kitchen scissors. Drizzle the icings backwards and forwards over the tart until used up.
- Sprinkle with more flaked almond and serve