This tasty treat is a cross between a cheesecake and a tart. It has a rich and unctuous top layer with a crunchy gluten free biscuity base.

Makes: 10 – 15 slices

Time: 25 min. prepping the base followed by 25 – 30 min. baking. 20 min. to make and add the topping. Just over an hour in total plus but add on cooling time and overnight in the fridge.

Level: Reasonably easy

Need: A 20cm/8” fluted tart tin or a plain cake tin with a loose bottom, a hand held electric whisk, 3 – 4 strips of acetate would be helpful but not essential.

Ingredients

NB – Most of the measurements below should be preceded by the word “about”. Sorry to be so vague, I made this “on spec”, didn’t make notes and here’s what I can remember. Gluten free bases offer lots of leeway anyway. Sometimes I swap the ingredient amounts around and often use ground almonds instead of flour. If you prefer, just use your favourite cheesecake base recipe with gluten free biscuits and melted butter.

For the GF base

200g/7oz butter
150g/6oz soft light brown sugar
50ml/2fl oz golden syrup
200g/7oz porridge oats
100g/4oz oat bran or oat meal (if you don’t have any just use more oats)
100g/4oz gluten free flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 egg, beaten
½ tsp fine salt

For the topping

200g/7oz white chocolate broken into pieces
50g/2oz butter
150ml/6fl oz double cream
50g/2oz – 75g/3oz full fat cream cheese or mascarpone
50g/2oz – 75g/3oz full fat crème fraîche
Some stem ginger, chopped (about 4 “balls” from a jar)
Some ginger syrup from a jar
(optional) 3 – 5 tubes of food colouring gel

Method

1. Brush the base and inside of the tin with melted butter and line the base with baking parchment. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan/ 400°F / Gas 6.

2. To make the GF base: in a large bowl mix together the oats, oat bran, GF flour, ground ginger and salt. Stir in the beaten egg.

3. Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan over a low/medium heat. Pour into the dry mixture and mix well.

4. Press the mixture into the prepared tin. If possible, work it with your fingers up the sides of the tin. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 – 30 minutes. When baked, set aside to cool.

5. To make the topping: put the white chocolate and butter in a bain marie and heat gently until the mixture is smooth and runny. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little, then mix in the cream cheese and crème fraîche.

6. Spread the chopped ginger over the cooled base then add enough syrup to wet the surface but not enough to make it soggy. (If you have strips of acetate they can now be used inside the tin to make releasing the tart easier later.)

7. Carefully pour the topping mixture on top of the biscuit base*. Chill in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, or ideally overnight, until set.

7a. * One option for decorating is to use several cake colourings. (I like using “Colour Splash” tubes) Just dab a few small drops randomly on the surface of the topping then swirl them into a pattern using a cocktail stick.

Gallery

I hope you enjoy this lovely tart. If you want to see more tart recipes click here.

Or have a look at my site for lots of other recipes, sweet and savoury. Here are a few to whet your appetite:

Chocolate Prune and Orange Tart

Double Chocolate Loaf Cake with Almonds

Coffee and Walnut Millionaires Shortbread

Strawberry and Pistachio Polenta Cake

If you’d like to comment or ask a question that would be great, just go to the contact page. Click here for the home page.

Happy Baking – Ian

Coconut and Orange is a great combination. These rolls are lightly enriched with milk, egg and sugar to give a soft and slightly sweet result. Good anytime, but especially nice at breakfast with butter, jam, marmalade and maybe some cream cheese.

Makes: 10 – 12 rolls

Level: Easy

Time: 2½ hours including both proving times

Need: Baking trays & scales. I use a stand mixer, but they can be made by hand.

Ingredients

450g strong white flour
50g – 75g desiccated coconut
30g caster sugar
10g salt
An Orange (zest and juice)
7g sachet of instant yeast
360ml lukewarm liquid (Juice from the orange then half water, half milk to make up the total amount needed.)
1 egg, beaten (half in the mixture, half to glaze)

Method

1. Tip the flour, desiccated coconut, sugar, salt and orange zest into a (stand mixer) bowl and mix. Then mix in the yeast.

2. Tip in the liquid with half the beaten egg and mix to a rough dough.

3. Knead with dough hook for 7 – 8 min. By hand maybe 12 – 15 min.

4. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove (i.e. double in size – about an hour in a fairly warm room.)

5. Knock back the dough then divide into 12 balls. Roll the balls on a lightly floured surface and shape. Use the palms of your hands to drag the outer surface under the baps to tighten the skin.*

* For the ones shown here I thought it would nice to create cross shaped rolls, so I just made four snips per roll using scissors. Now that I know it works, I’ll do that again, but probably more carefully and precisely next time.

6. Place rolls on two baking sheets and fasten inside a proving bag (I use a kitchen bin liner). Leave for the second prove.

7. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C / Fan 180°C / 400°F / Gas 6.

8. Egg wash the baps, cut slashes with a razor blade or very sharp knife (unless you’ve already snipped them with scissors) then bake for 20 – 25 min.

I wish you every success with your bread making. I hope you make these baps and enjoy eating them. Below are some quite different types of bread that you might want to try. All recipes can be founds via this link. For bread recipes go direct to my bread section.

Wholemeal yeasted loaf