Almond, Apple and Blackberry tart

I've skipped a few chapters in Annie Bell's Baking Bible and ended up choosing something from the tarts and pies chapter. The first recipe in this chapter is Apple and Almond Tart, I decided to alter it slightly and added some blackberries. 

First step is to make the pastry, Annie recommends doing this in a food processor so I used my mixer. Simply cream together butter and sugar. Mix in the egg and finally the flour and ground almonds. Mix till it forms a dough and then wrap and place in the fridge for several hours. 

Wrapped pastry ready for the fridge.

Once the dough is fully chilled roll it out and place in a flan dish. I found the dough didn't hold together at all and kept sticking to the side no matter how much flour I put down so I did this in stages. Rolled a section and placed in the dish. Then added more and more pushing it together with my fingers to form one piece.

Cover in greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Place in the oven for 20minutes. I did this stage for too long so my pastry has come out a little too crispy. 

For the filling mix together butter, sugar, ground almonds and plain flour. Add the eggs and mix together throughly. Place this in the cooled pastry case and top with sliced apple and blackberries. 

Place in the oven for 45 minutes, this is longer than the recipe stated but I found mine needed the extra time. The tart should be browned and spring back when touched. Leave to cool, slice and then enjoy!! 

Finished tart

The verdict: The pastry was really lovely, it melted in my mouth and tasted great, and I don't even like pastry!! The filling had quite a strong eggy flavour, I couldn't really taste the almonds and would have liked this to taste stronger. The fruit was really nicely cooked and softened. I enjoyed this enough to want more than my tiny piece (on a diet) and to consider making it again. Next time I'd consider putting in some almond essence to strengthen the flavour. 8/10. 

Bakewell Tart

After taking the mincemeat and almond tart to work, Gary came home with many comments that people were requesting a bakewell tart. One of his collegues is having a BBQ on Wednesday so I decided that our contribution would be a bakewell to keep everyone happy. I did my usual, when looking for a specific recipe, and search on the BBC food website. The bakewell tart I selected is by the hairy bikers and can be found here. 

The tart was very easy to make. The first step was to make the pastry and I just did this in my mixer. It involved mixing together butter, flour, salt, sugar and almonds until they are a breadcrumb mixture. Then add the egg and egg yolks until it forms a dough. This is then chilled for at least 30 minutes. 

Once ready the pastry is the rolled out to cover the dish, pricked and then baked blind in the oven for 15 minutes. 

For the filling mix together the ground almonds and caster sugar and then add the eggs, almond essence and mix it all well. Part of the reason I chose this recipe was the almond essence, I know what a difference that makes to the flavour. 

When the pastry is cool, spread the base with jam (I used strawberry but the recipe states raspberry) and pour the mixture on top. 

Jam filled tart

This is then cooked in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Mine was in there significantly longer than that but this is because I forgot about it whilst doing other things. I'll have to learn to set the timer!! As it turned out it just made the edges a little "crispy" as Gary called it!! 

Slightly "crisp" topped tart

The full view

The verdict: as yet I haven't tried this but will report back the verdict once we've been to the BBQ!! 

Mincemeat and Almond Tart

I decided to make this tart, from Mary Berry's complete cookbook, this week as Gary. It looked like a bakewell tart but with mincemeat instead of jam and I like mincemeat!! 

The first step for the tart involved making a simple short crust pastry. Usual process of mixing butter and flour together then adding egg, sugar and water. This was placed in the fridge to cool for at least 30minutes. 

Pastry made and ready to go in the fridge

Once the pastry had cooled it was rolled and placed in a flan dish and again cooled until ready. 

To make the filling I cream together butter and sugar and then added ground almonds and almond extract. This was all whisked together. 

Almond filling whisked together

The mincemeat was then placed on the bottom of the case and the almond mixture spread on top. This was baked in the oven for around 1 hour until the middle felt solid. This did result in the top getting too brown though so next time I would cover this up. 

Cooling tart

While the tart cooled I made some icing by mixing together icing sugar, lemon juice and water and spread this over the top. I then sprinkled almonds on top. 

The tart was sliced into 10 pieces and then mine was cut in half again which resulted in my slice having 340 calories. So an unhealthy tart then!! 

My slice BEFORE halving.

The verdict: I really enjoyed this tart but mainly because it had mincemeat in it. I was disappointed with the cake mixture as when raw it tasted strongly of almonds, however, once cooked the mincemeat flavour was overwhelming and I couldn't taste it anymore. I would recommend less mincemeat and next time I would just make a standard bakewell tart. I would give it 7/10 as I found the flavour combinations disappointing. I also didn't find the recipe particularly easy to follow and felt that my tart came out too dark and my icing too runny. 

Pink Almond Macaroons P. 175

As my final recipe for baking Monday I decided to make macaroons. I've never really got on with egg white based recipes, so this was a challenge for me. I used a recipe from Mary Berry's complete cookbook for pink almond macaroons. 

So the first step is to combine the icing sugar and almonds together in a bowl. Put this to one side. 

In a saucepan combine the sugar and the water, heat it slowly and then boil for a few minutes until it's a clear consistency. I found this point very hard to judge as mine didn't really go clear. I ended up adding some more water to the solution to try and achieve the consistency I thought it should be. 

Sugar and Water heating in a saucepan

Meanwhile beat up the egg whites until they are stiff. 

Egg whites whisked till stiff.

Slowly combine the sugar syrup and the egg whites. Add egg whites to the almonds and mix to a paste. Add red colouring to turn it pink (mine never really turned pink, they went brown!). Add some whisked egg whites to the almond paste and then combine the remainder. This is then piped into 3.5cm circles on lined baking trays. Leave this to dry for an hour, cooked for 25mins and then cooled in the oven for a futher hour. 

Macaroons cooked and cooled. 

Buttercream is then made combining butter and icing sugar. 

Buttercream ready to use

Use the butter cream with the jam to stick together the macaroons. 

Finished macaroons. 

The macaroons are ready to eat. 

My macaroon ready to eat

The verdict: I found this recipe quite hard to follow and work out what was required of me. The macaroons didn't come out pink, so I needed to add more food colouring. They were also too crunchy but this is because I forgot the first bunch and cooked it for too long. The second batch came out better, more chewy. The taste was really nice and I really enjoyed them. I would like to try these again to see whether I can improve my presentation and make them slightly less crunchy. I would mark these 8/10. 

Bakewell Cheesecake

Whilst browsing afternoon tea recipes I came across this idea, a Bakewell cheesecake, and I couldn't resist. I do like Bakewell tarts, however, I usually find that they are a little dry and I struggle to eat them, however, I really enjoy the flavour combinations.  

I found this recipe on BBC Good Food website. I'm so glad I did, as you'll see from the verdict, this was an outstanding success. 

First step is to make the biscuit base, this is made by crushing almond biscuits and flaked almonds before adding melted butter and almond extract. I struggled finding the almond biscuits as they didn't have them in the usual supermarkets but fortunately my sister found them in M and S and was able to get us some. I'm glad she did as I think they probably really added something to the base. Definitely worth investing in some if you can. 

Once the base was all mixed together this was placed into a loose bottomed tin and baked for 10 minutes. I've never baked a biscuit base before so this was a novel idea. This was then left to cool whilst I made the filing. 

Biscuit base filling

I made the filing by mixing the cream cheese until it was soft, to this I added in the sugar until it was combined. Finally I added the flour, vanilla, eggs and soured cream until the whole mix was fully combined. 

Creamy Cheesecake Mixture

To make up the cheesecake I added spoonfuls of the cheesecake mixer onto the base with spoonfuls of cherry jam placed in the middle. I tried to add these so they were scatter throughout the cheesecake so there were lovely clumps of jam amongst the mixture. 

Spoonfuls of Jam Amongst the Cheesecake

The made cheesecake was then placed in the oven and baked for 10 mins at 200oC, the temperature was then turned down to 110oC and baked for a further 35 mins. The oven was then turned off and the cheesecake was left in the oven for a further hour to cool. The recipe states that you should leave the cheesecake where it is with the oven door open, however, we just didn't have time for this as well so we took the cheesecake out at this point. The cheesecake is then left to cool at room temperature before placing in the fridge overnight to set. 

Scattered with Almonds and Baked

The cheesecake needed to stay in the fridge until it was time to serve it, we did try and get it out sooner, but it started to melt so it went back into the fridge. I served the cheesecake as a whole piece and on a cake stand. 

Cheesecake placed on Cake Stand

Inside View of the Cheesecake

Verdict: This cheesecake was delicious, the combinations of flavours was really tasty and balanced. I liked that the cheesecake mixture balanced nicely with the strong flavour of the biscuits and the sweet fruitiness of the jam. I gave the cheesecake 10/10. Gary also gave it 10/10 as did my mum. So in total this recipe got 30/30. There is nothing that needs to be changed and the flavours are just perfect. This is certainly a recipe I'll be keeping and I'm looking forward to enjoying my final 2 pieces that are left of the current one. Would definitely recommend this recipe. 

Honey and Almond Tarts

 My latest Jo Wheatley challenge was the Honey and Almond Tarts from page 92. I wasn't overly keen on this idea as I don't like pastry but as it was pulled out of the hat, I gave it a shot. 

It was probably the most complicated of the recipes I've done to date but having said that it was very easy to create. 

The first step was to make some sweet pastry and leave this to chill. Once that was chilled I used a cutter to cut out circles and then placed these in a pre-sprayed muffin tin and left to chill for 15 more minutes. 

Pastry is chilling

Whilst that was on the go I heated up the butter, sugar and honey to boiling and then added some double cream and almonds. This mixture seemed to be mainly almonds with honey and not much else. I was expecting a spongy mixture. 

This was added to the pastries and then they were cooked for 20mins. 

Add the honey and almonds

Once cooled I made some lemon icing (icing sugar and lemon) and added this over the top. 

The finished product, not too neat and tidy this time!

The verdict: Jo's description states "I think it's really great when you create different textures and tastes in a bake, and these little tarts do just that, with soft, short, crumbly pastry, then sticky honey and crunchy almonds, all topped off with tangy lemon icing. What's more, it's really simple". 

I agree that there were several different textures in these tarts and that the lemon icing certainly helped the tarts, however, I didn't really enjoy it. For me it was way too sweet and moist, I found it slightly sickingly sweet and since I don't like pastry anyway this didn't help. To be honest, the pastry section was actually my favourite bit of this so that's not great. My score is only a 6/10 this time. 

My husband however, for once, gives a higher score than me being 8/10, He thought the lemon complimented the nuts and pastry really well and it tasted really nice.

Contrasting views today then but bring the Honey and Almond Tarts to a total score of 14/20.