Bakewell Tart | Bake Off Box #5

Bakewell Tart | Bake Off Box #5

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Bakewell Tart - BOB

The 5th Bake Off Box for June 2021 contained the ingredients and recipe for a Feathered Icing Bakewell Tart! You may recall that this was a technical challenge set by Mary Berry years ago on the Great British Bake Off! I have actually made Mary’s Bakewell Tart before, but I think I did even better this second time round now that I am more experienced with shortcrust pastry! It’s true, practice does make perfect!

For those of you who haven´t heard, the Great British Bake Off has released the concept of the Bake Off Box, which is available for monthly subscription and contains the dry ingredients for a special recipe, as well as a bespoke piece of baking equipment! I thought a lot of you might be interested in finding out more about the Bake Off Box content, the recipe and the equipment that comes with it, so I thought I would film the “experience” and write up a review each month for you!

*Just a quick disclaimer before we start: This post isn´t sponsored (I wish!) and I am not getting paid for anything I have said. It´s just my own personal opinion and experience.*

Make sure to check out my other Bake Off Box recipes and reviews here:

Watch this Month’s Unboxing and Baking Video here:

Bakewell Tart with Feathered Icing

What is Bakewell Tart?

The town of Bakewell located in the Peak District National Park lends its name to this classic British Bake. What you are looking for in a perfect Bakewell Tart is crisp and delicate shortcrust pastry, filled with a homemade raspberry jam, a fluffy frangipane (almond filling) and a perfect finish of water icing! This recipe creates a feathered effect on the icing, a technique that is surprisingly easy yet has a striking effect!

As I said, I have made Mary Berry’s Bakewell Tart with Feathered Icing before, and I have also created my own spin on a Bakewell tart but made it mini, vegan and added blueberry! So click here to check out the recipe for my Vegan Mini Blueberry Bakewell Tarts!

Bakewell

Components and Techniques of the Bakewell Tart

As I said above, Bakewell Tart is a fluffy frangipane that tops a layer of homemade raspberry jam, is encased in some crispy shortcrust pastry and finished with some feathered water icing! So there are four main components and many different techniques to master in this bake – hence why it has been a Technical Challenge on Bake Off before!

Bake Off Box June Content
Check out the Review post here to see what was in the box this month!

The Raspberry Jam

It’s very easy to make your own jam, all it is, is a mixture of fruit and sugar! It’s very important to use jam sugar, a special kind of sugar that contains pectin which allows your jam to thicken. Normally, I would use a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio between sugar and fruit to make jam, but this recipe below calls for a 1:1 ratio! This led to me having initial reservations about the sweetness of this Bakewell Tart as I used a 1:2 ratio in my other recipe, however I didn’t think the final product was too sweet at all! Bakewell Tart simply is a sweet bake, so having a 1:1 ratio of sugar in the jam probably didn’t make much of a difference!

The Shortcrust Pastry

Shortcrust Pastry is a notoriously difficult pastry to master, but in this case I am an advocate of practice makes perfect! I have given Shortcrust Pastry many tries and have finally figured out what works for me which I have compiled in this Baking Basics post here if you are interested! The most important thing to remember is to keep everything COLD! The butter has to be cold, your hands should be cold and you should not skip the chilling of the pastry before baking! Also, I have come up with a great way of lining the tart tin without tearing the shortcrust pastry, so make sure you check out that Baking Techniques post, too!

In the meantime, if you are wanting to practice your shortcrust pastry skills, why not check out some of these other recipes:

Bake Off Box Bakewell Tart Recipe

The Almond Frangipane

Frangipane is named after Marquis Muzio Frangipani, a 16th century Italian nobleman who developed an almond fragrance to scent the gloves of King Louis XIII of France. That inspired his pastry chefs to create an “almond cream”, aka frangipane, a mix of butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and of course, ground almonds! If you are not the biggest fan of almonds or the flavour of marzipan, I would not recommend adding more almond extract to the frangipane and simply leave it out. If like me however, you absolutely adore marzipan, you should definitely add some additional almond extract to both the frangipane mix and the water icing to intensify the flavour! It’s very easy to buy almond extracts at the supermarket in the UK.

The Feathered Icing

The last step in the below recipe is to make a water icing (i.e. an icing made with water and icing sugar) and colour a bit of it dark pink to create a feathered icing effect. The technique is surprisingly simple but definitely creates a stunning effect – so definitely give it a go! Just watch the video linked above or here if you are unsure about how to do it and want a visual explanation!

Bakewell Tart with Feathered Icing

More Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges

I’ve actually made it a bit of a mission to complete all Bake Off Technical Challenges, so this recipe ticks off another one on the list! Check out the recipes below if you want to see how I got on or try the recipes yourself!

Bake Off Bakewell Tart

Bakewell Tart | Bake Off Box #5 June 2021

Recipe

Ingredients:

FOR THE JAM:

  • 100g fresh raspberries
  • 100g jam sugar

FOR THE SHORTCRUST PASTRY:

  • 200g plain flour
  • 100g butter, cold and cut into cubes
  • 40g icing sugar, sifted
  • 1 medium egg

FOR THE ALMOND FRANGIPANE:

  • 130g butter, softened
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 150g ground almonds
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 1 tsp almond extract

FOR THE ICING:

  • 250g icing sugar
  • ½ tsp almond extract
  • 3-4 tbsp water
  • A few drops of red gel food colouring

YOU WILL ALSO NEED:

Method:

  1. To make the jam, put the raspberries into a deep saucepan and crush them using a potato masher. Add the jam sugar and set over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Once melted, turn up the heat and boil for 3-4 minutes until the jam starts to thicken. Pour the jam into a shallow bowl to cool while you make the pastry.
  2. To make the pastry, add the flour to a bowl and rub in the cold butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the icing sugar and add in the egg and mix with a knife until it starts to come together. Finally, use your hands to bring the mixture together in a ball, adding a little bit of cold water at a time if the pastry is too dry. You can check out some of my other tips for making shortcrust pastry in this Baking Basics post here.
  3. Lightly flour your work surface and press down the pastry with your hands into a flat dish. Place it onto the base of the flan tin then roll it out using a rolling pin until the edges of the circle are roughly 3-4 cm from the edge of the base of the tin.
  4. Lightly flour the top of the pastry and fold the overhanging pastry into the middle of the tin, then carefully place the base into the tin and unfold the edges again (check out this video and Baking Techniques post here for a visual). Use a small bit of excess pastry to gently press the pastry into the fluted edges around the tin. Trim off most of the overhanging pastry, but leave some to allow for pastry shrinkage.
  5. Prick the base all over with a fork, then chill the pastry case in the fridge for 20 minutes while the oven is preheating.
  6. Preheat the oven to 190°C or 170°C fan.
  7. Before baking, scrunch up some baking paper, then unscrunch it and use it to line the tart case. Fill with the ceramic baking beans or uncooked rice and bake blind for 15 minutes.
  8. Remove the pastry case from the oven and carefully remove the baking beans. Use a small sharp knife to trim the edges whilst the pastry is still hot by carefully running the knife along the edges of the flan tin. Then return the pastry case to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes to dry out the base completely.
  9. To make the almond frangipane filling, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Then add in the flour, ground almonds, eggs and almond extract and beat until smooth.
  10. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 180°C or 160°C fan.
  11. To assemble the Bakewell Tart, spoon the set jam into the bottom of the pastry case and even out using the back of a spoon. Then spread the frangipane evenly on top and level the surface.
  12. Return the tart to the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden-brown and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin (this will take at least one hour).
  13. Once the tart is completely cooled, you can make the icing. Add the icing sugar into a bowl alongside the almond extract and 3-4 tablespoons of cold water and stir to make a smooth and fairly thick icing. Take 2 tablespoons of the icing and put them into a small bowl before adding a squeeze of red food to make a dark pink icing. Spoon the pink icing into a small piping bag (or use a sturdy freezer bag instead). Use a pair of scissors to cut a tiny corner off the end of the piping bag (or the edge of the freezer bag).
  14. Spread the white icing over the top of the Bakewell Tart and smooth the surface with a pallet knife. Next, pipe parallel lines of the pink icing on top, leaving about 2 cm between each line. Starting at one end, drag a cocktail stick through the lines at a 90-degree angle to them. Alternate between dragging the cocktail stick towards you and away from you to create a feathered icing effect (see video). Wait until the icing has completely set before cutting the Bakewell tart into slices!
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