Mincemeat Bakewell Tart

My family isn’t so much of a fan of pumpkin pie, and I was tasked with bringing dessert to last week’s Thanksgiving celebration. I get a couple of British baking magazines and this time of year they have many festive desserts. I love anything with mincemeat, and as soon as I saw this recipe for a mincemeat tart combined with a Bakewell tart, I knew that was what I wanted to make. 

A traditional Bakewell tart has a pastry shell, filled with jam and then topped with an almond filling. This just uses mincemeat in place of the jam. This particular recipe uses more of a cookie crust for the base rather than traditional pastry. I think this would be just a good with regular pie crust, as I found this crust to be challenging to work with. It was very sticky and it even stuck to the parchment. It just fell to pieces when I tried to transfer it to the tart pan. I just pressed it in to place and that seemed to work ok.

Topping the mincemeat with the almond filling was a very delicate procedure, so take your time in doing that. There is plenty of filling, even though it doesn’t seem like there is that much filling. My tart pan wasn’t as deep as I think it needed to be, so my pan was extra full and it made it difficult to remove the tart from the pan. Once I cut the first piece it was fine. This is a beautiful tart. It’s fairly sturdy, so it travelled well, too. We all enjoyed this at dinner, and it would be perfect for any upcoming holiday event.

Mincemeat Bakewell Tart

2.5 ounces butter, room temperature

3.5 ounces sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 ounces flour

4.5 ounces butter, room temperature

4.5 ounces sugar

2 eggs

1.5 ounces ground almonds

3.8 ounces self-rising flour*

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger

14 ounces prepared mincemeat

1/3 cup sliced almonds

In a medium bowl, using a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Stir in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour and beat until the dough comes together. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Have a 9” tart pan ready.

Place the pastry between sheets of parchment paper. Roll out to 1/8” thick. Transfer the dough to the tart pan. (If the dough is too sticky you can’t cleanly get it in the pan, just use your fingers to press the dough into place.) Prick the base of the tart shell with a fork and freeze for 10 minutes to set. Line the tart pan with foil and top with pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes.

Remove the tart from the oven and remove the foil and pie weights. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees.

In a large mixer bowl stir together the butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, self-rising flour, cinnamon and ginger, set aside. Spread the mincemeat in the bottom of the tart shell. Carefully top with mincemeat with the butter/ground almond filling. Sprinkle with the sliced almonds. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet.

Bake for 45 minutes, until the top is golden and the filling is set. Allow to cool on a wire rack. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Recipe from BBC Easy Cook

* I make my own self-rising flour by combining 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt

Cranberry Crackle Tart

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for the Cranberry Crackle Tart. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from this pie and the picture looked interesting. This pie is basically pie pastry filled with cranberry-studded meringue. My friends kept asking me if the pie was cranberry, topped with meringue. No the meringue is the filling for the pie. Interesting! was the verdict. I loved that the recipe was fairly straight-forward and required few ingredients. Make sure you check out what the other TWD bakers thought of this week’s recipes at the Tuesdays with Dorie website.

I used some pie dough that I already had on hand, basically galette dough. I love Dorie’s press in the pan pastry, but I figured I should just use what I already had. You top the pastry with a thin layer of jam; I used some raspberry preserves that a friend at work had made. I’m glad I had read what the other TWD bakers had experienced in making the meringue. They suggested using a hand mixer to make the meringue, since it was a fairly small volume and sometimes the big mixer doesn’t do the best job with small projects.

I mixed my meringue but I’m not sure that I whipped it enough. It seemed a little soft, but I folded in the cranberries and put it in the oven to bake. Mine puffed and cracked a bit, and it’s a very pretty pie. It seems like it shrank a little as it cooled. I think that my pastry got over baked throughout this process, but I had rolled it fairly thin, so maybe that was it. My husband and I tried this and it’s…interesting. Some bites I really liked it, other bites I thought that there were too many cranberries. I liked the meringue combined with the jam, so maybe there is some recipe idea there. This isn’t going to be my favorite pie, but I’m really glad I tried it.

Recipe from Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan, pages 135-137

Congress Tarts

I saw this recipe when it was first posted on Mainly Baking, but it just hasn’t seemed like the right time to bake them. They are perfect for tea, a springy treat featuring coconut, almond and jam. The weather has been so rainy this winter that I just haven’t felt it. Well, it is spring now and the weather is starting to improve some, so I figured it was time to make them.

These tarts are somewhat similar to a Bakewell tart, which has a layer of jam covered with an almond filling. These tarts are supposed to use raspberry jam, but I only had strawberry jam so I used that. This recipe calls for desiccated coconut, which is quite a bit different than shredded coconut that you buy here in the States. I often had desiccated coconut on hand, but I have to buy it at a specialty store and I didn’t stock up. I took shredded coconut, toasted it for about 10 minutes, and then processed it in the food processor. It’s not quite as fine as desiccated coconut, but it’s pretty close.

You can use homemade or store bought pastry for these, whichever works best for you. I was actually able to make 12 regular muffin-sized tarts and 5 mini tarts with this recipe. I haven’t been baking as much and these are a touch more involved. Cut the pastry, spread the jam, make the filling, shape the filling. The hardest part was knowing when they were baked, as it’s tough to tell if the pastry is done. I baked mine about 23 minutes. I love the flavor of these! Coconut, almond, lemon zest and the jam come together to make the best tart I’ve had in a really long time.

Congress Tarts

Pastry for a one crust pie

4 tablespoons jam

8 ounces sugar

8 ounces ground almonds

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 egg whites

2 ounces desiccated (shredded) coconut

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

zest of one lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 12-hole muffin pan.

Roll out the pastry and cut out circles large enough to line the bottom and up the sides of the muffin cups. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and spread about 1 teaspoon jam in the base of each muffin cup.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, ground almonds and cornstarch. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until white foamy. Pour into the almond mixture. Add the coconut, almond extract and lemon zest and mix well.

Shape about 2 tablespoons of the almond/coconut mixture into a ball and place in the muffin cup. Press down slightly to seal the edges.

Bake for 15-25 minutes, until golden brown on top, and the pastry is cooked underneath. Remove the tarts from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

Recipe via Mainly Baking

Mincemeat Tart Almandine

We celebrated an early Thanksgiving with my parents since we will be at my husband’s dad’s house on Thanksgiving. My parents put together the entire meal, but I said I would bring dessert. I’m not the biggest fan of pumpkin pie and neither is my mom, so I didn’t want to go that route. I actually opted for something completely different: a mincemeat almond tart. Ok, so it’s a Christmas recipe, but you can’t have too much mincemeat around the holidays!

This is from a British magazine, where mincemeat is fairly common. The idea of mincemeat scares a lot of people. While in times past it did contain meat, it doesn’t any longer. Think of mincemeat as a spicy, chunky applesauce. You can find it in the stores this time of year, or in the British section of your grocery store if there is one. Luckily I can find mincemeat in the baking aisle of my grocery store. And please, buy something that comes from the UK!

I chose to make the pastry from scratch, but you could use store bought pastry if you wanted to. You might have to roll the pastry fairly thin though. I think you can get by with thicker pastry in a tart, which is good for me as I don’t have the best of skill in rolling out pastry. You assemble the pastry and filling in the food processor and then layer everything together. This tart is fairly fool-proof and it also travels well. It’s sturdy, requires no refrigeration and can be made a day or two in advance. We all loved the tart after dinner; it’s a nice change of pace from traditional pie.

Mincemeat Tart Almandine

8 ounces flour

3.5 ounces butter, cubed

1.75 ounces sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon water

6 ounces butter

6 ounces sugar

4 eggs

6 ounces ground almonds

1 teaspoon almond extract

14 ounces mincemeat

2.75 ounces powdered sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

1.75 ounces sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Have an 11” tart pan with a removable rim ready.

Make the pastry: in a food processor combine the flour and butter and pulse until the butter is cut in to the flour. Add the sugar and pulse again to combine. Add the egg and water and process until the dough comes together. If the dough seems crumbly, add additional water. Gather the pastry together in a ball. Refrigerate if desired.

Roll out the dough until  a circle slightly larger than the tart pan. You will have plenty of pastry; your dough should be about ¼” thick. Line the tart pan with the pastry and trim the edges. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.

Make the filling: in the same food processor (no need to wash it) process the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and process until smooth. Mix in the ground almonds and the almond extract. Pulse until the mixture is incorporated.

Spread the mincemeat over the pastry in a smooth layer. Top with the almond filling. You may not need to use all of the filling.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden brown. Leave the oven on.

Once the tart has come out of the oven, make the icing: in a small bowl combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice. Whisk until smooth. If the glaze is too thick to pour, add additional lemon juice or water. Spread the icing over the tart and sprinkle with the sliced almonds. Bake for 5 minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Mary Berry, via BBC Good Food Magazine

Russian Grandmother’s Apple Pie Cake

Today is Dorie Greenspan’s Birthday. I’ve made so many recipes from Dorie’s cookbooks: Baking from My Home to Yours and Baking with Julia. The Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers thought that baking something in honor of Dorie’s birthday would be nice. I wanted to go back to the book I started with, Baking from My Home to Yours, and find a recipe to try. I’ve made most of the recipes in the book, but there are still some recipes that I haven’t yet tried.

I ended up picking the Russian Grandmother’s Apple Pie Cake. I love desserts with apple. I also studied Russian history in college so why wouldn’t I like this? I was actually surprised that I hadn’t made this yet. You make a cookie-dough like pastry and then fill the two rounds of pastry with apples. How could I not like that? 

I forgot how much I love the recipes in this cookbook. The write ups give each individual recipe such personality that it’s so fun to make things. I opted to make this in a deep dish pie pan, so I had extra dough left over. I used 7 apples because apples I buy in Washington State are very large. I used a combination of Fuji and Gala apples, and my only complaint is that the filling was a bit dry. I suspect that’s based on the type of apple I used. I really enjoyed making this and I was glad to try a new recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours. Happy Birthday Dorie!

Russian Grandmother’s Apple Pie Cake

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Juice of 1 lemon

3 1/4 – 3 1/2 cups flour

7-8 apples

Fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup raisins

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Sugar or coarse sugar

Make the dough: In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs and beat until light, about 3 minutes. With the mixer on low, add the baking powder and salt and mix to combine.  Add the lemon juice and stir, it’s ok if the mixture curdles. With the mixer still on low, gradually add 3-1/4cups flour. If the dough doesn’t quite clean the sides of the bowl, add the addition ¼ cup flour. I did need to add the extra flour.

Divide the dough into halves and shape each half into a flat disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 hours, or up to 3 days.

Prepare the apples:  Peel and core the apples and slice about 1/4 inch thick; cut the slices in half crosswise if desired.  Combine the apples with the lemon juice and then add the raisins. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and then sprinkle over the apples and stir to coat. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Butter a deep dish pie plate and place the pie plate on a baking sheet.

Assemble: remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature about 15 minutes. Roll out one piece of dough on a well-floured surface to a circle about 2 inches wider than the base of your pie pan and ¼”thick. Transfer the dough to the pie pan so the dough comes up the sides of the pan slightly.  Spread the apples evenly over the dough.

Roll out the second piece of dough and position it over the apples.  You should have about a ½ inch overhang. Press the top and bottom crust together. Brush the top of the dough with water and sprinkle with sugar. Cut 6-8 slits in the top crust.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown and the juices from the apples bubble up through the slits.  Cool on a wire rack until warm or room temperature.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan