In my quest to learn how to make laminated doughs (think croissants), I picked up Murielle Valette's Patisserie. It's brilliant, I've even cooked more than one thing from it already (croissants, pain au chocolate, lemon tart, dense chocolate cake and the modified bakewell below). For my colleague's birthday, I insisted on making her some cake, and made a bakewell as I had all the ingredients to hand (in fact, the pastry had been made and frozen the weekend before). Instead of the apricot and almond tart in the book, I went for a raspberry bakewell, which went down very well when I brought it into work on the Monday.
I'd highly recommend the book if you like French pastries (and cake in general), it's divided into a techniques section and various chapters based on particular doughs (puff pastry/brioche/choux) and I'll certainly be making more from it. It's a great way to fill your workmates with butter, as it's a critical part of most of these tasty treats.
Pastry
- 230g flour
- 140g salted butter (normal butter in a gold wrapper, otherwise add salt)
- 55g caster sugar
- 1 egg
Rub the flour and butter together until it's breadcrumblike. Don't overwork it or the butter will melt and the pastry won't be lovely and crisp. Mix in the sugar, add the egg and mix quickly until it forms a large ball. STOP WORKING THE PASTRY. Mash into a vaguely rectangular shape, wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge, have a coffee and sit down for an hour.
Divide the dough in half and freeze a portion (you can use this for more cake in the future). Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it's about 4mm thick. Gently lower it into your favourite pie tin and form gently into the corners. Trim the top of the pastry with a sharp knife and put the pastry into the fridge for another half hour. Pre-heat the oven to 160°C.
Put a load of baking paper into the pastry case and fill with baking beans (or uncooked rice or lentils, I use some red lentils I don't care for). Bake for 40mins. Remove the baking paper and contents and put the pastry back in the oven for 5 more mins to brown the middle slightly. Take out of the oven to cool while you prepare the almond filling. Leave the oven on, you need it at 160°C in ten mins anyway.
Filling
- 110g softened butter
- 110g caster sugar (plain sugar or vanilla sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract, if you use vanilla caster sugar, you can leave this out
- 90g ground almonds
- 25g flour
- 2 eggs
- 3 dessertspoons of good rasberry jam
- a large handful raspberries, frozen is grand
Beat the sugar, butter and vanilla essence together. Add the ground almonds and flour and mix well. Beat the eggs and add a little at a time, mixing well.
Spread the jam on the bottom of the pastry case. Pour over the almond filling. Drop in some raspberries. Bake at 160°C for 45 mins. Cool in the tin. Turn out and serve with the best coffee you have.
