An Old Favourite

One Sunday in the middle of March the sun shone continuously and in the morning I took the opportunity to go on a steady 8 mile walk with an old school friend who I was able to introduce to some of the local countryside for the first time. On my return home I decided to make a pudding with plenty of sweet ingredients to give me some energy before I slipped back into the working week. I decided to go with a traditional English Pudding- the Bakewell Tart.

I first took a four centimetre deep dish that was about twenty-five centimetres across and greased with margarine and a sprinkled a bit of Plain Flour in the base of the dish.

I then cracked one Egg in a bowl and mixed it with two ounces of Caster Sugar. I added five ounces of Margarine to the bowl and stirred it into the Egg and Sugar gradually whilst adding periodically eight ounces of Plain Flour. Once everything was stirred together it resembled Cookie Dough and when it was in this state I realised it was ready to roll out.

I sprinkled a bit of Plain Flour on my work surface and rolled out the dough until it was wide enough to cover not only the base of the dish but also the sides of it. I then laid my hands on a jar of Raspberry Jam and spread over the base of the dish until the jam covered the base totally.

It was now time to make the filling. I put four ounces of Margarine and four ounces of Caster Sugar in the bowl and creamed them with a wooden spoon until the sugar was so mixed into the Margarine that the ingredients looked like a large piece of fluff. I followed up by putting two Eggs into the bowl and stirring them in thoroughly. In order to stop the mixture turning too sloppy I added four ounces of Ground Almonds and half an ounce of Plain Flour to it and stirred it in until the mixture toughened up and thickened. Once it was thick enough I poured it into the dish so as it covered the Jam-stained base. I took care to ensure the filling was spread evenly throughout the dish.

Immediately after cooking- you'll know the Tart's cooked if the edges start to burn as happened here. 

I then heated my fan oven to two hundred degrees (I recommend two hundred and ten or even two hundred and twenty degrees if you have a normal oven) and cooked the Bakewell Tart for thirty minutes. Sometimes depending on how powerful your oven is you may need to cook it for thirty-five or forty minutes. I then left it to cool.

Some say the old ones are the best ones and this is certainly the case with this dish, a dish that is sometimes overlooked through over-familiarity by the casual food lover. The sweet filling combined with the Jam which is offset by the more savoury base make this a tasty pudding without it being too sweet and sickly. If you really want to overdose on the Sugar why not wait until the tart is cold and top it with Icing? Whichever approach you want to take this traditional pudding is worth acquainting yourself with.

Ready to eat- the jam and the filling make this pudding sweet but not too sweet.