Nothing looks as pretty as a tart sitting out on the table. Those fluted edges do all the work for you, making it look like you REALLY know what you’re doing in the kitchen, even though all you really did was roll out some dough. On the scale of tarts, this one falls in the easy zone. It doesn’t have a ton of ingredients, and it doesn’t require a super fussy arrangement of anything (I’m looking at you, apple rose tart, that has been taking over my pinterest – ain’t nobody got time for that).
If you haven’t heard of a Bakewell tart, well, you don’t live in England, and you aren’t alone. This is a classic English tart that most people in North America haven’t heard of. It’s got layers of almond flavour, a little slick of raspberry jam, a simple sweet glaze drizzled on the top, and is usually served with afternoon tea.
It’s such a great little recipe to keep in your back pocket, something different to pull out the next time you’ve got company over.
Did I mention how easy it was too. Because it’s easy. All you need is a good icing game, and to achieve that, you just need a zip lock bag with a tiny piece of the corner cut off to drizzle a thin stream back and forth across the tart. Drizzle, turn a quarter turn, repeat. There, that’s your icing game.
Bakewell Tart
Ingredients
Pastry
- 1 1/3 cups plus 1 tbsp flour
- 5 tbsp cold butter
- 2 to 3 tbsp water
Filling
- 9 tbsp butter (1 stick plus 1 tbsp)
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 1/3 cups ground almonds (almond flour)
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 2 tbsp raspberry jam
- ½ cup sliced almonds
Glaze
- 2/3 cup icing sugar
- 2 to 3 tsp water
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400ºF with a rack in the middle position.
Pastry
- To make the pastry, place the flour and butter into a medium bowl. Use your hands to combine and mix together until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Add the water, and mix it together with a wooden spoon until it forms a dough. You can get your hands in there again to knead it a bit faster.
- Roll the dough out on a floured work surface, just large enough to fit your tart tin.
- Line the tin with the dough, pressing into all the edges, and trimming any excess (an easy way to do this is to roll your rolling pin over the top of the tart pan).
- Place in the fridge and chill for 30 minutes.
- Prick the dough with a fork, then line it with foil and fill with beans to blind bake.
- Blind bake the shell for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and foil and bake for another 5 minutes.
- While the tart shell is cooking, make the filling.
Filling
- Melt the butter in a pan. Take it off the heat and whisk in the sugar. Whisk in the ground almonds, egg, and almond extract.
- When the tart shell comes out of the oven, spread the raspberry jam over the bottom. Pour in the filling, and then sprinkle on the sliced almonds.
- Return the tart to the oven and bake for 35 minutes.
- Let cool completely before drizzling on the glaze.
Glaze
- While the tart is cooling, whisk together the icing sugar and water. Pour it into a ziplock bag, and then cut a very tiny piece of the corner off (you want a fine drizzle).
- Drizzle the icing back and forth across the cooled tart, then turn the tart 25º and repeat, until you have a nice cross-hatch of glaze.
Heel pain