Mary's Bakewell Tart

I am a fan of the dutch television program Heel Holland Bakt (All Holland Bakes), so when the 2016 series of The Great British Bake-off was broadcasted on dutch television this summer, I didn't miss an episode. One week judge Mary Berry chose a bakewell tart for the technical challenge, and I decided to try baking it in my Aga. Especially because one of the layers in the tart consists of frangipane and I love this word!
It turned out to be a real challenge and I had to change the original Marry Berry recipe, but I am satisfied with the (very sweet) result.

Ingredients:

The sweet shortcrust pastry
- 200 g. plain flour
- 25 g. icing sugar
- 100 g. salted butter, chilled and diced
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1 tbsp. cold milk

The frangipane
- 150 g. salted butter, softened
- 150 g. caster sugar
- 150 g. ground almonds
- 2 eggs, beaten
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp. almond extract

The jam
- 4 tbsp. raspberry jam

The icing
- 300 g. icing sugar
- 1 tsp. almond extract
- 3 tbsp. water
- red food colouring gel

To make the pastry, rub the cold butter in the flour, using your fingertips. Keep rubbing until it looks like fine breadcrumb (photo). Stir in the icing sugar, add the egg and the water, mixing to form a soft dough. Don't knead it!

Shape into a disc and chill for 30 minutes, wrapped in cling film. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and use to line a 23 cm fluted flan tin. Leave in the fridge to chill for another 30 minutes.

Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with baking beans.

Bake blind high in the baking oven (180º C) for 20 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and cook for a futher 10 minutes to dry out the base. Take out to cool.
Spread the base of the fan with 4 tbsp. raspberry jam.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the ground almonds, egg, lemonzest and almond extract and mix together. Spoon the mixture into the pastry case and level out with a pallette knife.
Bake for 45 minutes on the floor of the baking oven, until golden and a skewer inserted in the centre, comes out clean.Remove from the oven and leave on a wire to cool.
For the icing, sift the icing Sugar into a bowl. Stir in the almond extract and cold water to make a smooth, fairly thick icing.
Place 3 tbsp, of the icing in a separate bowl and add the red colouring gel to make a raspberry coloured icing. Spoon the icing into a small piping bag fitted with a no. 2 plain nozzle (or make a cornet, using baking paper).
When the tart has cooled, spoon the icing on top, spreading evenly. Pipe parallel lines of the pink icing over the white icing, then drag a cocktail stick through te line to create a feathered effect. Leave to set.

Rhubarb tart

The rhubarb in our vegetable garden is growing fast now: time to bake a delicious rhubarb tart! This is my favorite recipe.

Ingredients:
- 750 g rhubarb (cleaned and cut in small pieces)
- 15 g vanilla sugar
- 3 tablespoons custard powder
- 30 g sugar
- 100 g raisins

For the dough:
- 150 g sugar
- zest of 1 lemon
- 150 g soft butter
- 3 eggs
- 150 g self raising flour
- some salt

Mix the rhubarb, sugar, custard, raisins and vanilla sugar. Prepare the dough by mixing sugar, butter, zest and salt. Mix the eggs in, one at a time. Add the flour at the end and put the dough in a 24 cm spring form pan (greased and floured) and line bottom and sides. Fill the pan with the rhubarb mixture. Bake in the baking oven for almost one and a half hour.

Tarte à l'Oignon (French onion tart)

I think I was only 12 or 13 years old when my parents took my sister and me on a holiday to Alsace in France. We stayed in the picturesque little town Riquewihr, famous for its old houses from the 16th and 17th centuries. And for the Riesling, a very tasteful white wine which is produced in Alsace. I remember that one morning we were invited by friends of my father and they offered us a large piece of delicious onion tart. Accompanied by a large glass of the best (and first!) Riesling I ever had. At 11 in the morning!
I found the recipe of the genuine Tarte à l'Oignon on the internet: Recettes Alsaciennes at alsace-vins.net. As usual I transformed the original recipe to an Aga-proof one.

This recipe is based on puff pastry. And because I dislike the deep frozen ready to use puff pastry you can buy in the supermarket, I always prepare some myself. Not the difficult way, but so-called rough puff pastry. This is how I do it:

 Ingredients:

- 250 g wheat flour

- 250 g cold salted butter

- 125 g ice cold water

- 4 g salt

Method:

Mix the flour with the salt and mix in the butter, which has been cut in small cubes (let the butter become ice cold for this: put it in the freezer for half an hour or so). I use my KitchenAid for this. What a perfect machine that is! When the mass is transformed to a substance that looks like bread crumb, you can add the water and transform it into a ball of dough. Don't knead it! Wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour. If it has not cooled down enough you can put it in the freezer for a while.

Put your dough on a lightly floured working surface and roll it out to a 10 x 30 cm rectangle. Fold the end which is closest to you over the dough for one third and fold the other end over it. Now you end up with a perfect(!) square. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process. Don't expect that this is an easy job! The dough will become better to handle later on...

Wrap your dough in plastic again and put it back in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Once the pastry has rested follow the rolling and folding process again; after half an hour in the fridge the pastry is ready for use. Now the moment has come to make your tart.

Ingredients:
- 600 g sliced onions
- 250 g bacon lardons
- 60 g salted butter
- 60 g flour
- 400 g cold milk
- 2 egg yolks
- salt, pepper, ground nutmeg

Method:
Bake the bacon lardons on the simmering plate for about 10 minutes and take the lardons out of the baking pan. Use the grease for baking the onions, slowly: they must not color, for also about 10 minutes. Mix the bacon and the onions and keep them warm on the warming plate. Now prepare a bechamel sauce: melt the butter on the simmering plate and when the butter is boiling add the flour. Stir well and let the mixture simmer for 5 or 10 minutes. Now add all the milk in one time and stir, stir, stir, until the sauce is cooking. Let it cook for some time until a thick and lumb free sauce forms. Keep stirring all the time. bring to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg and transfer the sauce to your working surface. Now first incorporate the egg yolks and after that the baked onions and the bacon.
Now put the puff pastry in a 24 cm spring form pan (greased and floured) and line bottom and sides. Fill the pastry with the bechamel/onion/bacon mixture and let it bake in the baking oven for at least an hour.
Bon appetit!

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Torta Contadina alle Pere (Italian rustic pear tart)

A few months ago I posted a recipe about making a simple apple tart and I have had many reactions from friends who baked it: they were all excited. So when my friend Ellen sent me an email with a recipe about an (also) simple pear tart, I decided to bake it in my Aga. This recipe is also originally from Italy, published by Katie Caldesi (www.caldesi.com) in her book Mangiare!
The original recipe mentiones chocolate drops and pine nuts, which I left out, and I reduced the amount of milk, because I think the dough gets to wet otherwise. And I am using cold butter instead of butter at room temperature, because it makes a better dough. At last: I think that also sweet bakings need salt, which is not mentioned in the original recipe. The baking powder gives the baking a little salty taste, but I used also salted butter (as I always do).

Ingredients:
- 200 g flour
- 15 g baking powder
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 50 g milk
- 2 pears, peeled and cut in thin slices
- 100 g cold salted butter
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped out
- lemon zest (of a whole lemon)
- 80 g raisins

Ingredients

Ready for baking

Method:
For the amounts of ingredients mentioned above I use a round baking pan which measures 24 cms. Grease the side by using some melted butter and dust it with flour. Cover the bottom with baking paper.
Now mix the flour, the sugar, lemon zest, the scraped out vanilla and the baking powder, using a whisk. Add the beaten eggs and the milk and work it in using a rubber spatula. When the dough is becoming smooth, mix the raisins in. Now you can add the cold butter, sliced in small cubes. Just gently work them in using your spatula.
Poor the mixture in the prepared baking pan and push the sliced pears into it (arrange them nicely). Bake the tart for 35 to 40 minutes on a rack placed high in the baking oven.

NB: Aga-cooking is a kind of slow cooking. If you are using a 'normal' oven, 25 to 30 minutes on 180º C. will probably do.

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Torta de Mele facile (simple apple tart)

There are so many ways to make an apple tart and most recipes are rather complicated. And they also take some time and skill. But this (Italian) recipe is that simple and the result is that delicious, that I consider it my favorite. I thank my friend Ellen for sharing this recipe!

Ingredients:
- 350 g self raising flour
- 225 g cold salted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- some salt
- 125 g raisins (welded if dry)
- 175 g granulated sugar
-  75 g chopped walnuts
- 500 g apples (I always use 'goudreinet')
- lemon zest (from a whole lemon)
- 4 eggs
- cane sugar for finishing

Method:
For the ingredients mentioned above I use a backing pan which measures 24 cms. Grease it by using some melted butter and cover the bottom with baking paper. Mix the flour with the cinnamon, the salt and the butter (sliced in small pieces) until it looks like bread crumb. I use my KitchenAid for that. Then add the raisins, the walnuts, the lemon zest and the sugar. Use a rubber spatula for mixing. Now peel your apples, remove the cores and slice them. Add them to your mixture. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and whisk them in the mixture..
Fill your baking pan and place it for about an hour and a half or more in the baking oven. After half an hour baking, cover the tart with some aluminium foil for about 45 minutes, to prevent the top from getting too dark.
Finish it using the cane sugar and let it cool on a rack before removing it from the baking pan. Buon appetito! 

PS: a good friend of mine who is on a strict gluten free diet is a great fan of this recipe. She uses a gluten free mixture instead of the self raising flour with great results. This easy way of making a tart needs no building up a base of dough, a task that is very difficult when you don't have any gluten in the dough. The product used for replacing the wheat flour is produced by a German company, named Schär. The product itself is named 'mixture C: Kuchen & Kekse". It is available in Europe, but I am not sure that it can be bought in the US.

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen.