blackberry tart

I picked about a kilo of blackberries at the weekend and made jam.  Went out yesterday and picked a load more so I thought I would make a blackberry tart with a tangy lemon layer.



For the pastry:

150g plain flour
75g butter
1 tbsp icing sugar
water to mix


rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs.  Sprinkle in the icing sugar then add water to form a soft pastry.  Grease a 22cm round loose-bottomed tart/flan tin and line with the pastry.  Cover with grease-proof paper, fill with baking beans and blind bake at 180c for about 15 minutes.  Remove the beans and paper, and bake for a further 10 minutes or so until the pastry is cooked and golden brown.

I always line the tin with the pastry but don't trim until after it has blind baked for 15 minutes.  I find if you trim with a bread knife you end up with a nice clean finish.

For the lemon filing:

140ml water
1 lemon (juice and zest)
15g cornflour
1 egg yolk
small knob of butter
55g caster sugar

Put the cornflour in a jug with a couple of spoonfulls of water.  Bring the remainder of the water to the boil with lemon zest and pour this over the cornflour.  Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, add the lemon juice and boil until thick.  Add the sugar and butter and beat until smooth.  When the mixture has cooled down slightly, beat in the egg yolk.  Pour this into the cooked pastry case.

Once the lemon filing has set, arrange the blackberries on top then prepare the blackberry jelly.

For the blackberry jelly:

About 100g blackberries (I used the squashy and small ones that were leftover)
enough water to just stop the blackberries from burning
a table spoon of sugar
6g gelatine

Boil the blackberries with the water and sugar.  Strain to remove all the pips and pulp, then measure out the liquid.  You need 200ml of liquid in total so add more water as necessary.  Bring this back to the boil, sprinkle over the gelatine and whisk until combined.  Allow to cool then pour onto the tart over the blackberries.  Allow to set - takes about 1 1/2 hours in the fridge - and sprinkle with a little icing sugar.

Serve with a cup of tea and a sunny day

butterfly cupcakes

Specially for a little girl's birthday party

Had the great honour of making an army of cupcakes for a little girl's birthday party so made 20 each of lemon and strawberry cupcakes decorated with lashings of butter icing and little white butterflies, and filled with jam.


to make just 20 cakes
150g stork for cakes
150g caster sugar
3 eggs (free-rangers of course)
150g self-raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon or strawberry flavouring
1/2 jar of lemon curd or strawberry jam (not the lumpy sort though)

preheat oven to 180c.  Put the paper cases into bun tins ready
soften the stork then beat in the caster sugar
add eggs one at a time
mix in the flour, baking powder and flavouring
half fill the paper cases and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch
leave to cool
once cooled inject the cakes with the jam/lemon curd until it squirts out the top a little


for the butter icing topping
250g unsalted butter
500g icing sugar
2 tsp lemon or strawberry flavouring
a few drops of yellow or red colouring

beat the butter until soft
gradually add the icing sugar
add flavouring and colouring
pipe on to cakes in a fancy swirl



                   I topped the cakes with little butterflies made from ready-made icing.  I've got a nifty little cutter that cuts out the shape and prints the butterfly patterns on the icing all in one go.  To give them a bit of shape I hung them on wooden skewers (patterned side down) until firm then stuck them onto the butter icing before that set.



feed to small children and stand well back while they get a sugar rush then a hit of artificial colouring!