bakewell slices

I've been wanting to bake Bakewell slices for absolutely ages, at least a year, so I'm really pleased to have finally made them. That's one less bookmark in my baking books! I'm determined to work through more of them this year.

I made these slices for Mother's Day back in March as my Mum loves almond bakes. (Is it just me or does March already feel like an eternity ago?!) They went down an absolute treat and didn't hang around the cake tin for long.

I baked the shortbread base the night before and left it to cool overnight and made the frangipane topping the following morning. I often avoid recipes if they have too many stages or look too involved so this tactic worked nicely for me. Saying that, these slices really weren't difficult or particularly time consuming to make. The shortbread base is far less hassle (and mess) to put together than making pastry.

My only change to the recipe was adding almond extract to the frangipane mixture as I really wanted a strong almond flavour. I recommend it if you're also an almond fan. As I baked this a while ago I can't remember how much I added, likely no more than 1/2tsp as almond extract is pretty strong. A little goes a long way.

Mmmmmmm, frangipane, jam and shortbread. Not much else to say, really!


Bakewell slices
Recipe (slightly altered) from "Vintage Cakes" by Jane Brocket, published 2012

shortbread base:
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
50g caster sugar
125g softened butter
1 large egg

Filling:
4 -6 spoonfuls (or more, I won't judge) of your preferred jam. I used raspberry

Frangipane topping:
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g ground almonds
75g self-raising flour
1/4 - 1/2 tsp almond essence
handful of flaked almonds

Line a 20 x 30cm tin with greaseproof paper and set aside. Put the flour, ground almonds and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small cube pieces and rub into the flour mixture with your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Lightly beat the egg in a small bowl then add to the breadcrumb mixture. Using either a blunt knife or your hands mix it all together until it becomes a soft, sticky dough.

Press the dough into the lined tin, taking care to make sure it's evenly distributed and pushed into the corners and edges. Prick the dough all over with a fork (around 20 times) then cover with clingfilm and let it chill for an hour. Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C Fan/ Gas 4 before you take the tin out of the fridge.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the base is dry and just starting to change colour. Be careful not to over bake it. Once baked, leave to cool on a wire rack while you prepare the topping. Leave the oven on if you're continuing with the topping.

For the frangpine, whisk together the butter and sugar in a large bowl (with a mixer) until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the ground almonds, flour and almond essence and fold everything together until everything is fully combined.

Once the shortbread base is cool (roughly 15 minutes after it's out the oven) spread a layer of jam on top. Carefully spread the frangipane on top of the jam, making sure the two don't mix together. Don't worry about it looking too neat though or being uneven around the edges. Scatter the flaked almonds on top then bake it for 22-25 minutes until risen and golden brown in colour. If a sharp knife/skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean then it's done. Leave to cool before removing from the tin. Once cool, cut into slices with a sharp knife. I cut mine into 16 although you can make them as big or small as you like.

bakewell biscuits

I can't believe how little I've baked this summer. This week I felt I was starting to suffer from some sort of baking deprivation so I rectified the situation with these bakewell biscuits. If I had left it any longer my eyelids might have started twitching.

This was an incredibly satisfying bake. Whoever thought to create a bakewell tart/biscuit hybrid should give themselves a pat on the back. These are very tasty biscuits and the recipe yields a surprisingly large batch which is great for greedy people like me who rarely ever just eat one biscuit with their cup of tea. I think I ended up 26 biscuits in total (the batch, not the amount I drank with my tea.)

The recipe (which I slightly adapted) is from a Co-op magazine although I discovered it on one of my favourite baking blogs, The Caked Crusader. I'll be the first to point out that my batch turned out different looking to CC's. My biscuits spread quite a lot in the oven, I'm assuming due to my butter being very soft and my warm hands when I handled the mixture, so they lost their thumbprint indentations. They're still visually attractive and taste delicious, but I don't think they can be considered thumbprint biscuits anymore. 

The main changes I made to the recipe were swapping out the vanilla for almond extract and omitting the lemon zest and juice. I wanted the biscuits to be purely about almond and raspberry - no other flavour distractions.

The biscuits have crispy edges, slightly chewy, jammy centres and are packed with almondy goodness. It's like having a bakewell tart without needing to faff about making pastry. Basically, these biscuits make me feel very happy. My vintage embroidered tablecloth also makes me happy, even though it's a sh*t to iron.

Here's hoping it will be less than a month until my next bake.

Bakewell biscuits

175g softened butter (I used a combination of unsalted with slightly salted butter as that's what I had to hand)
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
150g ground almonds
150g self raising flour
approx. 1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
handful of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line some baking sheets with baking parchment - at least 4 baking sheets or 2 reused/rotated.

Beat together the butter, sugar and almond extract for a few minutes until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the ground almonds and self raising flour and stir until everything is fully combined.

Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Place the balls onto the baking sheets, spacing them well apart as they will spread. I had 8 per baking sheet. Push your thumb into the centre of each ball to create a well and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the centre. Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top.

Bake in the oven until golden and well spread. Although the original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, both the Caked Crusader and I found ours took longer at 16-18 minutes. Leave to cool and firm up on the trays before transferring to a wire rack/tin/your mouth.

mini raspberry bakewell cake

Last week I had cause for celebration -  an issue which has been causing me immense stress and anxiety throughout the whole of this year has finally been resolved. I feel like a massive weight has finally been lifted off me. Hopefully I'll start sleeping better and stop feeling like such an emotional wreck.

Anyway, that was a bit deep and vague. Let's talk about cake. Basically the first thing I wanted to do to celebrate was bake a cake. A little raspberry and almond cake.... all for me!

The recipe is from BBC Good Food and I halved the quantities to fit the mixture in a 6 inch cake tin.  I also added a few dollops of raspberry jam in the middle of the cake as I only had a handful of raspberries and I subbed the vanilla extract for almond essence for an extra almond kick as it's something I mentioned doing the last two times I used this recipe - first time here and a blackberry version here.

The cake was every bit as good as I remembered, possibly better since I oomphed up the almond flavour. I had a piece fresh from the oven and it was just the most comforting thing ever - warm almond sponge, squidgy raspberries and crunchy flaked almonds. Perfect.

Last night I warmed up a slice, made a big mug of tea and sat down to do some knitting whilst watching Ghosts of Mars on tv. A pretty fantastic Sunday evening, I'm sure you'll agree!

Mini raspberry bakewell cake

75g ground almonds

75g margarine/softened butter

75g golden caster sugar

75g self raising flour

1 large egg

1/4 tsp almond essence 

100g (ish) of raspberries. I only had about 50g so added a couple of teaspoonfuls of jam for flavour

handful of flaked almonds

icing sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4 and grease and line a 6 inch cake tin. Put the ground almonds, butter, sugar, self raising flour, egg and almond essence in a large bowl and mix everything together for about a minute until well blended. 

Spread half of the mixture into the base of the cake tin and scatter half your raspberries on top. If you're short of raspberries like me, just put a few small dollops of raspberry jam on top to make up the difference. Spread the rest of the cake mixture on top. Arrange the remaining raspberries on top and scatter with a handful of flaked almonds. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 40-45 minutes until risen, light golden and firm to touch. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Leave to cool for 5 minutes or so before taking it out of the tin. Cool on a wire rack or serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

Blackberry bakewell cake

The recipe for this cake actually calls for raspberries, but after last week's unfortunate raspberry incident I was in no hurry to revisit them. In fact I went as far as glaring at the raspberries in the supermarket and bought blackberries instead. Much more seasonal not to mention bug free, hurray!

I toyed with the idea of replacing the vanilla extract with almond extract to ramp up the bakewell flavour (and I see I had the same thought when I baked this cake last year) but I came to the conclusion that the sweetness of vanilla would compliment and balance the super tart blackberries.

I also see from last year's post that I mentioned this cake would be good served warm with custard. I can now testify this as that's exactly how we ate it at the weekend and the waft of vanilla from the reheated cake is amazing. 

Custard snobs will throw their hands up in horror because we made custard from the powder. Quite frankly I don't care, I love custard made from powder!

This is definitely a cake I can recommend to almond fans. My mum was delighted that I revisited this recipe as she loved it the first time round. The recipe can be found on BBC Good Food. and the only change I made was my choice of berry. As my blackberries were quite large I cut them in half to spread them evenly through the mixture. I also found my cake took an extra 15 minutes to bake.

Bakewell muffins

I may have slightly burnt the top of these muffins, but let's not discuss that, because they taste absolutely amazing! If you're into bakewell flavours, these are the muffins for you. I recommend eating them warm for full "oh-my-god-wow" impact.

I feel slightly bad however that my night-time, lazy photography doesn't do the muffins justice. You'll just have to trust me that they're tasty.

The recipe can be found here on the BBC Good Food website. The only thing I would note is that two teaspoons of almond extract is enough. Only add a third teaspoon if you want to be smacked in the face with marzipan flavour. As an almond lover, even I think that would be a tad extreme!

Cherry Bakewells

These are the other treats I baked with my friend on Friday. We were very pleased with them. They look so homely and old fashioned. Definitely the type of home bake to put on your cakestand and wheel through to your visitors on a tea trolley (damn it, I want a tea trolley!)

How unbelievably cute and dainty are they? I can't wait to make more of these. They're definitely going on my "must" bake list for an afternoon tea party.

They're relatively straight forward to make too, even though I wasn't entirely sure how much to fill each pastry case. Hopefully the next batch will be more regular.

Cherry Bakewells

Recipe from Traditional Teatime Recipes by Jane Pettigrew.

Makes 20 tart (we made 24)

To make the pastry:

450g (1lb) plain flour, sifted

pinch of salt

100g (4oz) butter, softened

100g (4oz) lard, softened (we didn't have any so we used more butter)

3-4 tbsp cold water

Mix together the flour and salt. Cut the fats into small pieces and rub into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Gradually add enough water, mixing with a fork, to give a stiff butt pliable dough. Knead lightly for a few minutes until smooth. Wrap in cling film or a plastic bag and chill for at least 15 minutes before using.

For the filling:

50g (2oz) strawberry jam (we used raspberry as we thought it was more traditional)

100g (4oz) butter, softened

100g (4oz) caster sugar

2 eggs

50g (2oz) ground almonds

50g (2oz) self raising flour, sifted

1 tsp almond essence (we skipped this as we didn't have any)

175g (6oz) icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tbsp water

20 cherries (fresh, stoned or glace)

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease 20 patty tins (we used bun/cupcake tins). On a floured board/surface, roll out the pastry and cut 24 circles using a 7.5cm (3in) cutter (whatever covers the base of the tin). Use to line the prepared tins and spread a little jam in the base of each. Beat together the fat and sugar, then beat in  the eggs, one at a time, adding half the ground almonds after each one. Add the flour and almond essence and stir well. Spoon the mixture into the pastry cases and bake for 20 minutes until well risen, firm and golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins. Mix together the icing sugar and water and when the tarts are cold, spoon the icing on to the top. Decorate each with a cherry.

Bakewell tart

Here's the bakewell tart I made with the left over pastry from yesterday's quiche.

This is the second time I've made a Bakewell Tart and I figure it's going to be a third time lucky thing. The first time I forgot to add flaked almonds and the pastry I made from the recipe tasted too lemony. This time I nearly burnt the tart, it cooked quicker than the recipe stated (good job I decided to check on it 10 minutes before it was meant to come out!) I was also a bit too keen with the raspberry jam which made it tricky to add the sponge mixture. It still tasted better than my first one though, so next time it WILL be perfect. I also took the opportunity to show off my party ring mug. I love how sturdy it is, perfect for a big cuppa after a long day at work.

Judging by my blog posts I have baked three times in the last week. No wonder my trousers were feeling on the tight side the other day! May have to reign myself in slightly.

Here's a picture of my quiche too. I was really pleased with it, despite seeing in hindsight that it looks more like a pizza. Definitely going to be making quiche more often.