Bake Day - Filo Bakewell Tart

By: Pete on 15:35:00

This is a variation of a Paul Hollywood recipe for bakewell tart... I made it just before Christmas, and really liked how the fresh raspberries worked, making it a much lighter and more delicate tart than traditional bakewell.

When I did Spanakopita earlier in the week, I'd bought some filo, in case my home-made stuff didn't work. I thought this would be a good way of using it up, so rather than make a traditional sweetcrust case for the bakewell, I instead used filo.

I put 6 layers of filo in a 20cm tin, giving each one a brush with melted butter...on top of that I spread a layer of raspberry jam, then placed some fresh raspberries, and finally put the frangipane in a piping bag to fill inbetween the raspberries, and fill the casing. Rather than use flaked almonds, I've used whole ones, to give a crunch. Finally, I trimmed the excess filo from the tin, and popped it in the oven. The end result looks pretty good, though it's a challenge getting it out of the tin!

Filo Bakewell Tart

• Preheat the oven to 160'C
• Grease 20cm loose-bottomed tart tin

Ingredients

Pastry case

• 1 pack of filo pastry
• ~50g melted butter

Frangipane

• 100g softened butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 50g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• Couple of drops of almond essence

Filling

• ~20 fresh raspberries
• 2-3 tablespoons of raspberry jam 
• Whole almonds (to decorate)

1) make the frangipane first. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl, and mix until light and fluffy (I use a stand mixer...you will need to scrape the sides down a couple of times)

2) Add the eggs one at a time, and mix in thoroughly

3) Add in the flour and ground almonds, as well as the essence, and beat in until the mixture is light and stiff.

4) Now make the flan case. Open the filo, and place a damp cloth over the sheets (this stops it drying out as you work)

5) Take a sheet, place it in the tin, shaping it to the sides

6) Using a pastry brush spread some melted butter on the filo in the tin

7) Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the other filo sheets, putting each in at a different angle

8) Spread the jam over the bottom of the tart

9) Take the raspberries, and place them evenly over the tin

10) Put the frangipane in a piping bag, chop off the end, and pipe around the raspberries, building up the filling. Once the gaps are filled, pipe the rest of the frangipane over the tart evenly.

11) Smooth off the top using a pallette knife.

12) Press the whole almonds evenly over the top of the tart.

13) Using some scissors, trim the excess filo from the tart tin, allowing a small overhang.

14) "fluff" the filo overhang, so that when it bakes it spreads out a bit.

15) Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the frangipane has gone golden and risen slightly.

16) Cool on a wire race. Remove from the tart tin carefully (you may need to crack off some bits of filo.