Stuff yer bake

It’s becoming an expensive habit going to Berkswell farm shop (for some reason we always go when it’s my boyfriends week to pay for food, hahaha) but I think I would rather have a really good free range, rare breed joint of meat less often than something not nearly as good every Sunday. We bought a boned loin of Gloucester Old Spot pork and I intend to stuff it with a mixture of apricots soaked in orange juice and brandy, bread crumbs, walnuts, a little sausage meat, a chicken liver or two to enrich it and a cooking apple. I’m not sure how it will turn out but you’ve got to try these things. I will tell you how it turns out anyway and hopefully get my trusty photographer to take some yummy pics of it.

My boyfriend has been bugging me to make a Bakewell tart for ages. For all those people who don’t know what it is, it’s a pastry base with jam spread on top of the pastry then an almondy batter is poured over and cooked in the oven. The result is a moist nutty tart that I absolutely love. I got the recipe from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ book, Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible. I was intending to make it with raspberry jam, but I spotted some Morello cherry jam while I was at the farm shop and had to have it. Cherries and almonds go so well together.

This was my first attempt at making it and I hope you’ll agree that it turned out rather well (for all you know it tasted like crap). I haven’t really made much pastry before but like my Mother, who is also good at making pastry, I have cold hands, which is apparently the key to great pastry. I heard a really good tip for rolling out the pasty and safely transferring it into the tart tin. Once you’ve made the pastry put it in the fridge for half an hour wrapped in cling film. Then take it out put the ball of pastry onto a sheet of cling film and press it till it’s a bit flatter. Put another sheet of cling film on top of the pastry and roll it out to it’s required size. Peel the cling film off the top of the pastry and transfer the pastry, pastry side down with the other sheet of cling film uppermost into the tin, easing it in gently. Once the pastry is pressed well into the tin, remove the top sheet of clingfilm and then refrigerate the pastry again for half an hour before use.

When I get into the kitchen, being a couple of contestants short of a game show, I normally do something stupid, and today was no exception. Having taken the tart out of the oven, I thought it might be nice to have some icing sugar dusted over the top. I got the box out of the cupboard without looking at the front and proceeded to lovingly dust the top of my tart with cornflour (I’m convinced I was blonde in a former life). So it looked lovely for the pictures but wasn’t exactly a stunning addition to the taste. Despite the cornflour with a little actual icing sugar mixed in, it tasted lovely and it won’t last long (back to aerobics tomorrow then!).

Technorati Tags: Bakewell tart, Berkswell farm shop, pork, icing sugar, pastry, stuffing, jam, almonds, pictures

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 12:25 am and is filed under Meat, Disasters, Triumphs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.