Ingredients
- shortcrust pastry made with 6oz flour/3oz butter
- 5 tbsp thick seedless raspberry jam
For the sponge
- 200g butter, very soft, plus a little extra for the tin
- 200g golden caster sugar
- 100g ground almonds
- 100g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 25g flaked almonds
- Make the pastry by rubbing cold butter into the flour and binding with a little cold water. Rest for 30 minutes.
- Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Line the base and sides of a buttered traybake tin, about 18-20cm x 30cm, with baking parchment. Roll out the pastry to line. Lift into the tin and evenly press right into the corners. Prick with a fork and chill for 20 mins.
- Put another layer of baking parchment in the pastry shell and fill with baking beads. Bake the pastry for 8-10 mins until it‘s cooked but not too coloured, remove the beads and cook for a further 10 minutes. Cool for a few mins and turn down the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. spread the raspberry jam over the pastry .
- For the sponge, put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until soft and very well mixed. Spoon this over the raspberry layer, then smooth evenly. Scatter over the flaked almonds and bake for 35-40 mins until golden and firm. Cool completely in the tin. Slice and enjoy
Method
Well it's lockdown week 6 (or is it 7, I cant tell at this point) and the eldest has expressed a desire for a bakewell slice. That sounded like a great idea, and boredom being the order of the day, off I went. I had most of the ingredients to hand including almond extract whose best before date was a decade go (!) which is roughly when I last mad e a bakewell tart. However it smelled fine (well of arsenic I guess!) so I thought it was worth the risk. It worked fine, so that question is answered....
The combination of pastry, raspberry jam and almond sponge is magnificent and I searched a few recipes for one that seemed the most indulgent, and I think I was rewarded. A good recipe which is simple to do. I blind-baked the pastry before adding the filling, which does not appear to be common practice, but gave a great result. Nothing worse than a soggy bottom as we know....
This recipe (from BBC good food) calls for a pack of ready made sweet shortcrust, but I made my own without sweetness in it, figuring the jam was enough. I think I was right..
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