This is the first time I’ve ever made Bakewell Tart, but as I did it in quite a deep pie dish I think this counts as pudding rather than tart. When we were in Bakewell last year we tasted the original Bakewell puddings which taste absolutely nothing like the Mr Kipling ones which we’re all used to nowadays, in fact I really didn’t like the original one at all, which is why I thought I would have a go at making one myself.

I baked the shortcrust pudding case ‘blind’ the day before making the filling. I always use all butter or margarine for pastry as I don’t like the idea of lard and for me anyway it’s a nicer flavour, I always add a heaped teaspoonful of icing sugar for sweet pastry – but that’s just me.

Shortcrust Pastry:

6 oz plain flour
3 oz margarine
1 heaped teaspoon of icing sugar
a little water to mix it

If you can’t do pastry there’s no shame in buying the frozen kind.

Bakewell filling:

3 oz butter or margarine
3 oz sugar
1 egg
1 oz plain flour
3 oz ground almonds
1 1/2 oz cake crumbs or about 6 or 8 crushed sponge fingers
2 tablespoons milk
drop of almond essence
3 tablespoons raspberry jam

Cream the margarine and sugar together unitl very light. Beat in the egg, fold in the flour, icing sugar, ground almonds and sponge crumbs, add the milk and almond essence.

Spread the bottom of the flan case with raspberry jam.

Place the filling mixture on top and spread evenly.

Bake in the centre of a moderately hot oven for 40-50 minutes. Gas mark 5 – 6 or 375/400 F.

Leave to cool slightly and dust with some icing sugar if wished.

My original recipe does not have almond essence in it but as I love almond flavour I decided to add it.

My pudding was slightly softer in the very middle than it should have been, probably I should haveleft it in the oven a wee bit longer, maybe at a slightly lower temperature, as ever some fine tuning is needed as all ovens are different. I didn’t have any cake crumbs to hand when I did this but I did have sponge fingers which were left over from when I made a trifle, so I thought I would give it a go and it worked perfectly.

This tart/pudding is so much better than the ‘original’ ones on offer in the town of Bakewell, to my taste anyway. I was thinking of Jo at The Book Jotter’s Nan as I was making this one as apparently she used to spread lemon curd on the base instead of rasberry jam. So I’ve already made a small batch of lemon and lime curd and that will be the next thing I bake as home made curd doesn’t have the same sort of shelf-life as jam or jelly.

On the right hand side below are original Bakewell puddings, as sold in the town of Bakewell.