0 Dare to Bake Well

Umm, I mean bakewell. Tart that is. Co-hostesses Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar challenged us with a bakewell tart for this month's Daring Bakers' recipe. The history of the bakewell tart is a bit fuzzy. According to Jasmine and Annemarie, today's version of the bakewell tart/pudding typically falls under one of two categories. The first is the "pudding" where a layer of jam is covered by an almondy pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the "tart" where a rich short pastry holds jam and an almondy sponge cake-like filling. The version they came up with is a combination of the two: a sweet short crust pastry, frangipane and jam.



The first element was an easy to make dough for the short crust pastry. They encouraged us to put away the food processor and make the dough by hand. Grating frozen butter into the flour mimics the processing that a machine would do. My only problem was a lot of butter stuck to my box grater. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to extract every bit of butter out of the grater's teeth, so I just threw in another tablespoon of butter into the mix. Problem solved. To reduce the amount of water and increase the fat, I used heavy cream instead of water in the dough. No one said this was low fat baking!



They gave us the freedom to use any flavor of jam and it could be homemade or store bought. I decided to use a mango jam given to me by a friend. And then I exercised some creative license for the final element - the frangipane filling. Even though I love almonds, I used macadamia nuts instead of almonds in the frangipane filling. I'm not sure if I can still call it frangipane if it doesn't have almonds. I toasted the macadamia nuts in the oven and let them cool completely before blitzing them in the food processor. I made sure to add a small amount of the confectioners' sugar from the filling recipe. The confectioners' sugar absorbs some of the oils released from the nuts and prevents the ground nuts from turning into nut butter. I also added a bit of dark rum and vanilla to the filling to round out the tropical theme.

The end result was quite amazing. It was like eating a tart and cake at the same time. The cakey nut filling was divine. It was rich and moist. The perfume of the macadamia nuts paired wonderfully with the sweet mango jam. The crust was flaky and buttery, but sturdy enough to encase all the goodness of the jam and cakey filling. I could cut super thin slices and it held together beautifully which was important since I was taking slice after thin slice and eating it sans fork and plate.



The fine print:
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.
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