George’s Marvellous Baking Blog: Cheats Bakewell Tart

This just so happens to be a favourite at LOOK HQ – and George’s version is much simpler than many recipes; it definitely gets the LOOK handshake!

Ingredients

Short crust pastry (you can buy prerolled from the shop)

2oz lard

2oz unsalted butter

8oz plain flour

1/4 cup of water

Half a jar of apricot or raspberry jam

Cake

6oz caster sugar

6oz self raising flour

6oz margarine

3 medium sized eggs

2 caps of almond essence (optional – replace essence with a shot of Almond Liquor)

Icing sugar for decoration

Method

1. To make the pastry. chop the lard and  butter into tiny cubes and add to the flour into a bowl
2. Rub together, using your fingertips and thumbs (you can use a food processor as this gets a bit messy), until your mix is like fine breadcrumbs.
3. Make a well in the centre of the breadcrumbs, add the water and mix in with a fork.
4. When the mix gets too thick for the fork use your hands to press the mixture into a ball and press against the side of the bowl, turning it over, catching all the crumbs that might be left.
5. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and roll out using a rolling pin. The pastry should be approximately the thickness of a pound coin (if it’s too thin it might tear or jam might ooze out; too thick and it won’t cook properly).
6. Grease and lightly flour a flan dish or tin and have it close at hand for the next part.
7. Fold one half of the pastry over your rolling pin and pull the pastry almost off your surface, letting the feel of the edge guide you to your dish or tin and place the pastry over leaving as much even overhang as possible
8. A little at a time, lift the edge up and let it fall into the base of the dish or tin, letting it sink into the corners using gravity. No matter how tempting it is, don’t press it down it will stretch and weaken the structure.
9. Preheat your oven to 180c/fan 160c/gas mark 4.
10. Mix all the cake ingredients in a bowl until smooth.
11. Spread the jam on the pastry evenly using the back of a spoon. Only put it on the flat bottom not up the sides (if your jam isn’t spreading easily pop it in a bowl in the microwave for about 10 seconds and give it a good stir).
12. Spoon the cake mixture on top of the jam and smooth with the back of a spoon, making sure to fill in all around the edges so the jam is sealed in.
13. Place in the oven for 40 minutes or until a knitting needle or knife comes out clean.
14. Finish by dusting the top with icing sugar.

Enjoy!