Dish of the Day: Lily Vanilli’s recipe for the Mighty Bakewell Tart

Tasty... cherry Bakewell Tarts (Romas Foord)

I have a long running love affair with the Bakewell Tart, not the Mr Kipling variety but a delicate orange scented sablee, with mixed berry coulis, pillow soft frangipane, toasted almonds, fresh fruit and just a dab of buttercream.

In the bakery we alter them seasonally, with so many variations we have no right to call them a Bakewell at all, the true tart is a fiercely guarded British tradition, much like Melton Mowbray pies. The pastry is much same but the coulis inside and indeed the fruit on top changes almost weekly. This week is forced rhubarb, with baked slices of the fruit on top.

Create your own variation with a sweet pastry recipe you trust and the frangipane recipe below.

Frangipane

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: varies

Makes: 850g – approx 24 individual tarts

-230g unsalted butter, room temperature

-230g golden unrefined caster sugar

-230g ground almonds

-3 eggs

-50g plain flour, sifted

-Finely grated zest of 1 orange, lemon or grapefruit (optional)

1. Beat the butter and sugar together for approximately 3 minutes.
2. Beat in the ground almonds, then add the eggs one at a time, beating between additions. Finally beat in the flour and the citrus zest.
3. If making a Bakewell, blind bake your pastry, spoon in a little coulis, then pipe or spoon the frangipane to fill, sprinkle over with flaked almonds and bake at 180C for 15 mins or until just starting to brown.

Bakewell Assembly Animation here:

We are also introducing the world’s first agony-aunt baking column:“Recovering from a Bad Bake-up”. Send in your baking disaster stories of unexpected failures in the kitchen/recurring problems to badbakeup@independent.co.uk

On the third Friday of the month we will feature a Q&A with advice to help you recover.

Lily Vanilli’s Sweet Tooth is available from Cannongate books, 2012

Follow Lily on Twitter @lilyvanillicake

For more information visit lilyvanilli.com

Instagram lily_vanilli_cake

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• http://www.facebook.com/sian.chetty Sian Chetty

  Deeeeeeeeeeeee-licious! Highest recommendations!

• Pwhisto

  From ‘Round The Horne’, almost sixty years ago:-
  On Tuesday, I got my teeth into a Bakewell tart — on Wednesday, I came back from Bakewell ……”

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