Not exactly a Bakewell and a bit bigger than bitesize, but what the heck, they taste blooming good and I like the alliteration. (And I live near Bakewell too, not that it makes much difference, just thought I’d namedrop.)
Makes: 20 reasonable sized pieces
Time: 70 – 80 minutes making & baking + 30 minutes fridge time. Add on 10 minutes + 30 minutes fridge time if making your own pastry.
Level: Reasonably easy, especially if you buy ready-made pastry
Equipment: A 20cm (8”) square cake tin; food processor (not essential)
Ingredients
For the pastry (or use 375g/13oz ready-made sweet shortcrust pastry)
- 175g/6oz plain flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 25g/1oz icing sugar
- 75g/3oz cold butter, cubed
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- Small amount of very cold water
For the filling
- 150g/5oz softened butter, or use baking spread
- 150g/5oz golden caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 75g/3oz self-raising flour
- 75g/3oz ground almonds
- 150g/5oz mixed dried fruit
- 150g/5oz blueberries
- Zest of one large orange
- 1 tsp mixed spices
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- About 100g/3.5oz good quality blueberry jam (Bonne Maman make a nice one)
- Up to 100g/3.5oz marzipan – grated (Tip – pop it into the freezer for ten minutes first)
- 25g/1oz flaked toasted almond
Method
To make the pastry
1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl then add the sugar. Tip into a processor and pulse to mix. (NB Take care not to overmix. If you’re concerned then do steps 1 – 4 by hand.)
2. Add the cold butter and pulse again until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the egg yolks and lemon juice plus a little cold water, probably only a Tbsp. Pulse again briefly to mix, adding a small amount more water if required. As it begins to come together, tip the mixture out onto a sheet of cling film.
4. Wrap and bring it together then flatten it out and place in fridge for 30 minutes.
5. While the pastry is resting, butter and line the tin. Also turn the oven on to heat up to 200C/ Fan 180C/ 400F/ Gas 6.
Continue – with either home-made or shop-bought pastry
6. Roll out the pastry and use it to line the tin. (You’ll probably have plenty left over once you’ve trimmed the edges) Prick the base with a fork and, if you have time, place the tin in the fridge for thirty minutes to let the pastry rest again.
7. Line the rested pastry case with baking paper or foil and fill with beans then blind bake it for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and bake again for another 10 minutes.
8. Reduce the oven temperature to 170C/ Fan 150C/ 325F/ Gas 3½.
9. Beat the softened butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat. Also mix in the almond extract.
10. Stir in the flour, ground almonds, dried fruit, half the blueberries, half the orange zest and the spices.
11. Spread the jam over the pastry base then put dollops of the filling mixture over the jam before spreading evenly. Grate the hardened marzipan on top and scatter the other blueberries over too. You can either add the flaked almonds now or after baking.
12. Bake for 35 – 45 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and the filling has only a slight wobble in the middle. (It may be necessary to cover the edges with foil if the pastry is darkening too much.) Cool in the tin.
13. Carefully tip out the cooled bake and grate over the remaining orange zest then cut into pieces.
I hope you have a go at baking this recipe and really enjoy it.
Click this link for more tasty traybake recipes. Some of my special favourites that I’m sure you’ll love too are these: Coffee and Cream Brownies, Double Chocolate Biscuit Tiffin and Lemon Millionaires Shortbread.
Or have a look all the other sweet and savoury recipes on my site.
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Retired Bloke on Food n stuff 