bakewell tart

I had some flakey pastry left over from making pasties and a pie so thought I'd make something sweet.  Not the perfect pastry for making a tart but too nice to waste so I decided to try Bakewell Tart as I've never made this before.

So, a Mary Berry recipe once again.  Her recipe uses shortcrust pastry which would have been much nicer.  The Hairy Bikers recipe uses an enriched dough and tons of eggs but I'm guessing this was one of their pre-diet recipes.

2 tbsp raspberry jam
125g butter
125g caster sugar
125g ground almonds
1 egg
½ tsp almond essence
50g flaked almonds

for the icing

40g icing sugar

1 tsp cold water

Blind bake the pasty case for about 15mins at 180c, uncover and bake for a further 5 minutes to dry out.

Spread the base with raspberry jam

Melt the butter, add almonds and sugar.  Beat in the egg and almond essence.  Pour the mixture into the pastry case and sprinkle with the flaked almonds.  Bake for 35 minutes

Once cooled, mix up the icing and decorate.

raisin shortcakes

'I fancy a biscuit', I said.

'Oo, that sounds nice.  How about fruit shortcakes' he replied, salivating at the thought.

'I didn't know you liked fruit shortcakes.  You've never mentioned it before'.

So that was how I came to make fruit shortcakes today.

175g plain flour
75g caster sugar
100g butter
50g raisins
a sprinkling of demerara sugar

Mix the flour and sugar together.  Rub in the butter to form fine bread crumbs and bring together to form a soft dough.  A splash of cold water helps here, but just a splash.  Add the raisins.  I used them whole this time but I think in future I would chop them up to make smoother biscuits.

Roll out the dough on a lightly flour surface to about 5mm thick.  Using a 6cm cutter cut out the biscuits and place on a lined baking tray.  Prick the surface with a fork and sprinkle with a little demerara sugar.

Bake at 160c for about 18 minutes until very lightly browned.  They will still be soft at this time so allow to cool slightly on the baking tray for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack (and before eating them.  Raisins get extremely hot).

Cup of tea
Happy chap

banana bread

I had some manky bananas left and there was no way I was going to eat them.  I mean REALLY manky.  They were black on the outside and their bananary smell greeted me every time I went into the kitchen.  It was even beginning to seep into the living room so I knew it was time to use them up or bin them.  So, banana bread...

100g stork cake marg
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
3 manky bananas
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp cinnamon (maybe even a bit more)
some demerara sugar

Cream the margarine and sugar together.  Mash the bananas in a separate bowl and then combine with the marg and sugar.  I actually mashed the bananas first then adde the marg and sugar which made it much more difficult to combine everything so to hell with the washing up...use that extra bowl.

Beat in the eggs one by one them the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.  Add the milk and tip into a prepared loaf 2lb loaf tin.  I like to line and grease the tin.  Sprinkle with the dememera sugar to give a bit of a crunchy top and bake at 180c for about an hour until done.

Allow to cool, well at least try, and munch with a nice cup of tea.

Unfortunately this all got eaten before I managed to take a picture.



Bake at