The Bake Off Bake Along: Week 6 – Pastry

Week 6 was a strange and difficult week for me overall, and I watched Bake Off as a bit of light relief, but to tell you the truth I could probably watch it again as I was quite distracted. Pastry has always been a forte of mine and I was looking forward to making something new and hopefully less challenging than last week, as I wanted time to enjoy my weekend (not that I don’t 100% love doing the bake off – it does seem to absorb at least 1/2 my time off at the moment!)

I love how beautifully decorated and simple the frangipanes were (plus – almond cakey tart = YES!), the flauonas had some seriously weird ingredients which I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to find in the whole of the South West, let alone in Plymouth, and the vol-au-vonts looked like so much fun, but they are best eaten straight away and as decadent as we are sometimes, I couldn’t see Adam appreciating a platter of puff pastry mouthfuls for dinner.

Therefore, and mainly due to my love of almond flavoured everything, I went for a fragipane, and a simple one at that (I based it roughly on this recipe). Peach and Raspberry Frangipane was the recipe of the day, and it was not only the filling I hadn’t made before, but I’ve also never made it with that specific type of pastry either. Paired with a light chantilly cream, this pastry pudding was everything I hoped for – crisp sweet pastry, a layer of raspberry jam, moist soft frangipane and a topping of glazed peaches. A simple bake this week, but the outcome was so delicious, I will be definitely making one of these again!

Pastry Ingredients

• 175g plain flour
• 85g cold unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks

Filling Ingredients

• 100g caster sugar
• 140g butter
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 140g ground almonds
• 1 tsp almond essence
• 50g plain flour
• 2-3 peaches, sliced evenly
• 3 tbsp raspberry jam
• 3 tbsp apricot jam
• 1 small pot extra thick cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp icing sugar, sieved

Method

1. For the pastry, rub together the flour and butter until it is all even and looks a bit like breadcrumbs, then mix in the sugar.
2. Add one egg yolk and one tsp of cold water and mix, followed by the second egg yolk and another tsp water until the dough just comes together
3. Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge for half an hour
4. Heat the oven to 200 degrees celcius and then once the pastry is chilled, roll out on a lightly floured worktop until it is bigger than your pastry tin (23cm is the size that I used but I didn’t have a clip separate bottomed one so I used a glass flan dish instead)
5. The recipe I used said “if the dough rips, simply patch it up) I’ve not made this kind of dough before. *hint* THE DOUGH WILL RIP! So much so, that I’m pretty sure my pastry ended up 70% patches. It presses back together pretty well though so not to worry!
6. Line with some baking parchment, fill with ceramic baking beans and bake for 10 mins.
7. Take out, remove paper and beans, prick all over with a fork and bake for another 10-15 mins until golden. My idea of golden was a little over zealous but hey ho, it wasn’t burnt.
8. Whilst your pastry is cooking, make up the filling. For the frangipane, whisk the sugar and butter so its thoroughly mixed. Beat in the eggs and then add the flour, ground almonds and almond essence.
9. Once the pastry case is out of the oven, layer the bottom of it with some raspberry jam, spreading evenly and then topping with the frangipane mix. (you’ll want to leave a little in the bowl for licky lou’s later – this stuff is HEAVEN!)
10. Arrange your peach slices in an arty farty pattern on top of your frangipane and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. I was worried my frangipane hadn’t cooked so kept it in for the full 40 mins, but due to the over zealous previous blind baking, the pastry did go quite dark around the edge, though there was certainly NO soggy bottom, nor any undercooked pastry. No Siree!
11. As the tart is cooling, heat your apricot jam in the micro for a few seconds so that it’s runny, then brush all over the top of your tart so its super shiny.
12. To make the chantilly cream, stir the vanilla and icing sugar into the thick cream and serve a big dollop with every slice of tart – YUM!

I baked this on Sunday afternoon, and it was such a great bake for me this week as it was something I hadn’t made before, knew I really liked the taste of and didn’t take me hours and hours slaving away at the stove!

I loved it even more than I thought I would and even though my pastry was perhaps a little darker than I’d intended around the top, the crunch of the pastry next to the soft filling was perfect. Paul may have been really picky with the contestants this week, but it’s gone down a storm with my colleagues and family, so I was definitely star baker in their eyes!