Blind baking?

[Merlin5]

I've decided I want to create a yummy Bakewell Tart and I've been out today to buy things including a food processor, only £30. I can't expect too much at that price but hopefully it won't break too quickly.

So, before I make the frangipane filling, I'm going to have a go at making my own sweet shortcrust pastry case which I've not done before but it seems quite easy.

I believe it's best to initially blind bake instead of baking together with the filling straightaway, to avoid a soggy bottom. Anyone got experience of this?

So once the dough is in the flan tin, I'll need to put holes in it, then push baking paper into it, and then weigh it down. Apparently this helps crisp the base and keeps it from arching up and losing shape.

Also, I've read that coins are good to use instead of baking beans as they conduct heat well. Anyone tried that? With the cutoffs from the dough, I'm going to make little jam tarts.

 

[Merlin5]

That looks very good, Ellior, well made! I will at some point make one with a fondant topping. Last night I had watched Luis Troyano's tutorial on blind baking and yeah, he says trim it after the blind baking. Mind you, that means I can't use the excess dough to bake jam tarts.

Anyway, this is the one I'm making.

https://www.myvirginkitchen.com/recipe/bakewell-tart/

 

[Merlin5]

That looks really nice and moist, jpaul. Ground rice, interesting, as well as ground almonds? And you threw some marzipan into the mixture? Sounds good to me. By the way, I went and bought some cocoa. It won't be the best I'll admit but should be decent enough to make your chocolate recipe. I also want to make choc brownies with it.

I made a failed suet roly poly the other night. The pastry came out fine although could have been much thinner. The problem was that as I rolled it, tons of jam squeezed out and I thought it was just excess with still enough in there. But I ended up with Jamless roly poly

bsoltan, yeah, I'm gonna use a bunch of my one and two pence coins that I have collected in a tin. I'll make sure they're on baking paper and don't come into contact with the dough.

 

[Merlin5]

Ok, I made the pastry today, rolled it, and blindbaked it for 10 minutes, then another 2 minutes. Forgot to leave the pastry edges on until after the blind bake. Was a bit uneven around some of the edges.

I used a bunch of old one and two pence coins as seen in my photo.

Then made the filling. Oh, I sliced my finger on the food mixer blade, forgot to remove it before putting my hand in the bowl.
So I added a teaspoon of almond extract and a teaspoon of sicilian lemon extract, sprinkled with flaked almonds, baked for about 35 minutes. Came out quite nice I think.

 

[Merlin5]

Thanks guys, I've saved you a piece. It tastes very nice with crisp crust. However, jpaul, your filling looks like it's really lovely and super moist and I was wondering how you achieved that moisteness?

About Marzipan, I had been considering making my own and then coating in melted chocolate to make chocolate marzipan bars. It'll never be as good as my favourite Niederegger stuff but should be nice. I was going to use this recipe with a bit of whiskey added. Hardest part will be peeling the almonds. Apparently wouldn't be as good if I just used a bag of ground almonds.

I'm guessing it should work for Battenberg? By the way, you should really buy real flavour extracts instead of essences. According to some experts whose recipes I've watched, essences are not very good by comparison.

 

[Merlin5]

indeed .. I stocked up last month, when, annualy, nielsen massey is £3 in js ... it also does say bitter too, on the jar.

60g ground rice/25g almonds, 1 egg, 80g castor/80g Stork, 1/2tsp baking powder ... there is a debate on whether water in marg can give better cakes thab butter

Interesting. I'll try with some ground rice next time. Also, maybe Stork makes things more moist? I've just been using bog standard unsalted butter.

I've just had a go at making chocolate cupcakes and made use of the cocoa powder you inspired me to buy. Came out well. I used the Mary Berry recipe and halved the ingredients as I only made 6. I also added some of my own things, white choc chunks and milk chocolate drops. The sponge is delicious and very light and moist .

I kind of ****** the buttercream topping though. Tastes great but it was too runny, like a puree and when I piped it on in swirls it wouldn't hold in position, just dripped and went flat, lol. Only used 1 and a half tablespoons of water which was exactly half of the recipe. I think I know why. The recipe says to melt the butter and then add the icing sugar and milk. In other recipes, the butter isn't melted, it's just creamed in a mixer.

I'm pleased with the overall bake though.

 

[Merlin5]

Oh my. Can you email me a slice or two

 

[Merlin5]

Marzipan for battenberg and bakewell tarts were perhaps not marzipany enough in taste,
the extracts from the supermarkets all have alcohol diluting them so much more needed

I used only half a teaspoon of lemon extract and half a teaspoon of almond extract in mine and they really brought out the flavour. You mentioned earlier you use essence. As far as I can tell, essences are synthetic so perhaps that has something to do with it?

 

[Merlin5]

Wow, yeah. I looked at Dr.Oetker Moroccan Almond extract. It's a 35ml bottle and the ingredients are just Vegetable Oil (Sunflower) and Almond Extract. I've not tried it but it doesn't appear to be diluted with water and alcohol.

 

[Merlin5]

I made my first ever pastry recently also for a Bakewell tart but I used baking beans I got from Amazon.

One little tip for the pastry, don’t trim until after you blind bake as it does shrink a bit.

I used this recipe

https://www.bakingmad.com/recipe/bakewell-tart

I made another Bakewell using my recipe, but tried the fondant topping this time. It didn't come out as tidy as yours. I think I splodged a bit too much icing on and the red kind of got smudged. I think I could have afforded to let the white icing set a bit more first before applying the red lines. Also, I used Dr.Oetker red food gel which came out pink, and I've since seen others complaining of the same problem. Which colour gel or paste did you use? All tastes great though.

 

[Merlin5]

Still looks nice matey. My photo was from something like my 5th attempt and the first one I wanted to photograph.

I bought Cake Decor Gel Food Colour Red. I got it from Morrisons so I know they sell it.

Thanks, may give it a punt. Only one review on it though which says
"Barely even food colouring
Generally I would expect gel food colouring to be more concentrated than traditional liquid food colouring. This was not that. A whole tube barely rendered my bowl of icing pink."

But yours came out quite nice and red. Did you have to use more than a couple of drops? There's another I'm considering which has great reviews on amazon called Rainbow Dust ProGel, which I can get from a shop called Hobbycraft.