Daring Baker’s Challenge: Bakewell Tarts

Man cannot live on bread alone, or so it is said. With that in mind I sought to expand my baking repertoire beyond just bread. That search lead me to The Daring Kitchen and the monthly Daring Kitchen Challenge.

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar.They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800′s in England.

To make a Bakewell Tart you’ll need a shortbread crust and frangipane filling. The instructions for both of these can be found at a Confessions of a Cardamom Addict. To make the cherry Bakewell Tart shown, you’ll also need some cherry pan jam. You can of course use store-bought preserves, but really, if you’re going through all the effort of making a Bakewell Tart, what’s a few more minutes spent on pan jam? The amount of fruit preserve filling is very small as it is to be spread in a very thin layer along the shortbread crust.

As the smallest of nods to health-mindedness I substituted 4 ounces of the all-purpose flour in the crust with King Arthur Flour’s White Whole Wheat, which also required me to double the water in the crust, and substituted Splenda for the sugar in both the crust and the frangipane. Much like brioche, the idea of healthy eating goes right out the window, but that doesn’t mean we can’t attempt to fool ourselves!

Rather than making one large tart I made five 4.75″ diameter tartlets. If there is one thing that rolling out so many crusts taught me, it is how to make a shortbread crust. Shortbread crust is much like a regular pie crust, but with twice the butter. The same rules for making a pie crust apply, but in spades.

First, cut your butter into your flour. I prefer a pastry cutter to grating it. While it is often said that you can use two knives to cut in your butter if you do not own a pastry cutter, the small investment for a pastry cutter is well worth it. The goal is to get the butter into very tiny pieces without letting it get too warm and soft and the two-knife method just takes far too long.

The real trick in making a super-flakey and tender crust comes during the incorporation of water. You want to use as little as you can. Sprinkle a spoonful at a time into your butter/flour mixture and then “fluff” it with a fork. Scoot any small blobs of dough that form off to the side and then repeat until all of your flour is moistened. Scooting your dough around like this will help minimize how much water you add.

When rolling out dough most people start with a big, unevenly shaped lump of dough and then have problems getting an even circle when they are done. A simple way to help alleviate this problem is to roll your dough into a squat cylinder and then flatten it into a round disk before you start to roll. Do not roll back and forth! Roll from the center out to the edge in each cardinal direction and then again into the “corners.” By doing this you should get a crust that is almost perfectly round.

As mentioned, Bakewell Tarts put healthy eating right out the window. As you can see below, butter literally baked right out of the crust and frangipane and made a puddle on the pan below! I did the only thing I could think of to salvage things – I sent them to my husband’s office where each tart got shared, except for the one that Bernie got all to himself for his birthday. Happy birthday, Bernie (Just don’t send me the angioplasty bill, OK?)