Orientation and Bakewell Tarts

Orientation began this week at SOAS. I've been attending welcome lectures, meeting other post grad students, and waiting in lots of queues for ID cards, library cards, and enrollment processing.

London Lesson #6: The English love queues!

In fact, it turns out that queuing is a national pastime! When I went to get into the line for ID cards, I was shocked to find three people assigned to the task of organizing the line! One person told us where to queue (in case it wasn't obvious to go to the end of the line), one person went around straightening the line, making the line more uniform and orderly (forming a beautiful snake line with tight, crisp edges along the wall), and the third person made sure that as you neared the front of the line, you sat in chairs and moved to each consecutive chair as the line moved forward (which made it like a game of musical chairs). Maybe this is a sign that SOAS has more than enough administrative support? Since the queue regulators were volunteer students and weren't getting paid to be so enthusiastic about straight lines, I'm guessing that queue organization is hardwired in the English DNA. Look for Queue Formation as the new Olympic sport at the London 2012 games.

With an especially rainy day today, and with our shortbread depleted, I thought it was time to make another English tea time treat to fortify us through our studying sessions. And so I decided to make a classic English tart: the Bakewell tart.

The Bakewell tart comes from the Derbyshire town of Bakewell. It is made up of a shortcrust pastry shell filled with a thin layer of raspberry jam and topped with frangipane--an almond and egg sponge-like filling. A very popular tea time dessert, Bakewell tarts can be found in every grocery store, bakery, and tea house. I love pies and I love frangipane, so I thought this would be the perfect introduction to the strange world of English desserts. I decided to make mini tarts since David gave us a patty tin (mini tart pan). And I added cocoa powder to the filling to make it more decadent. The recipe is pretty straight forward and the tarts turned out to be delicious!!!!! Ryan, a big fan of Bakewell Tarts, said it is the best he's had! So here it is, step by step:

Chocolate Bakewell Tart

Pastry

3 oz (1/4 c. + 2 Tbsp.) unsalted butter

5 oz (1/2 c. + 2 Tbsp.) flour

1 oz (2 Tbsp) sugar

1 egg yolk

2 Tbsp water

Filling

3 oz (1/4c. + 2 Tbsp.) self rising flour

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

4 oz (1/2 c.) unsalted butter

4 oz (1/2 c.) sugar

2 whole eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 oz (1/2 c.) ground almonds

2 Tbsp lemon juice

zest from one lemon

Seedless raspberry jam

Combine the flour and butter for the crust in a bowl and work the butter into the flour using your fingertips or a pastry blender. Add the sugar, egg yolk, and water and mix together with a fork until the dough comes together into one ball. If the dough is a too wet to handle, add a little more flour. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. For the filling, combine the butter and

sugar and beat with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the batter and stir until combined. Fold in the almond meal, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Roll the dough out until 2 cm thick and line a 10 inch tart pan or cut out circles to line mini tart shells. Using high quality seedless raspberry jam, spread a very thin layer of jam along the bottom of the dough lined pan or shells. Fill the pan or shells to the top with the frangipane filling. For the 10 inch tart, bake at 425 for 15 minutes and then 350F for another 15 minutes. For small tarts, bake at 375F for 20 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Let cool completely. Dust with icing sugar (powdered sugar).

Yields 1 10 inch tart or 15 individual tarts. Enjoy!

Note: It is always more accurate to measure by weight, but if you don't have a scale, approximate volume measurements are in parenthesis. :)