Christmas Bakewell Tarts

I've been invited to take part in the Persil Christmas Cooking Blogger Challenge, Persil Washing Up Liquid has teamed up with Ruth Clemens, blogger at The Pink Whisk and runner-up of the Great British Bake Off, to create some festive family recipes. As a part of this challenge I either have to attempt one of Ruth's recipes or create my own version of a Christmas recipe.

Ruth has created some fantastic festive recipes to celebrate Persil's new Warm Spice washing-up liquid and I can't wait to try out the recipe for her florentines as they are one of my favourite 'niceties' for Christmas time. However, Approximately today I wanted to try a different version of an old favourite combining different elements of several cakes that are sumptuous and decadent: the frangipance of bakewell tarts, the richness of the currant mix in mince pies and the melted marzipan inside a Simnel cake. With those in mind, I've created my own Christmas Bakewell Tarts.

Ingredients:

• Shortcrust pastry:
  • 125g/4oz plain flour
  • pinch of salt
  • 55g/2oz butter, cubed
  • 30-45ml/2-3 tbsp cold water
  • 2oz ground almonds
  • 1oz caster sugar

• Frangipane filling:
  • 125g butter
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 125g ground almonds
  • 1 tsp of Nielsen Massey almond extract
  • 1tbsp plain flour

• currants, raisins and cherries roughly chopped in a food processor for thirty seconds (I'm using this instead of mincemeat as The Boy doesn't like that)
• marzipan

1. Make the shortcrust pastry in the traditional way. I'm confessing now that I used shop-bought ready-rolled pastry because the concept of making pastry with The Boy was too much to bear!
2. Cut out circles and place them into a small muffin tin. Trim off the excess pastry and put a layer of baking beads over the base and cook for 8 minutes at 180°C.
3. While this is blind-baking in the oven, make the frangipane mix.
4. Cream the sugar and butter, add the eggs, mix in the flour and ground almonds, with a teaspoon of almond essence. Mix thoroughly.
5. Once the tart cases have cooked, remove the baking beads carefully (they're hot!) and place a small circle of marzipan in each one.
6. Place a teaspoon of currant mix on top, and then put a spoonful of frangipane mix on the top of each tart case.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C until a skewer/knife comes out clean.
8. Sift icing sugar over the top.

For a change I thought I'd video this cooking session. Mainly because, quite frankly, cooking with a three year old is fun and I wanted to share that.

Ruth Clemens has created a range of recipes to celebrate the launch of Persil’s Limited Edition Warm Spice Washing Up Liquid. For more information and recipes visit www.persildishwash.co.uk  

I've been sponsored by Persil to produce this recipe and blog about it; the recipe, chaos and ideas within are my (and The Boy's) own.