Daring Bakers Blackwell Tart

So, yes, it's posting day for the Daring Bakers and after I spent the whole day with the Brain and made a super yummy dinner which I'll be posting on later, I decided I better get to it and make the Blackwell Tart. The hesitation comes in because the base of the tart is pie crust. They can make it sound all fancy and call it a shortcrust pastry and put egg yolks and sugar in it, but it's still a pie crust. And frankly, pie crust makes me nervous. So does the price of almond meal. But I really don't have a good excuse for missing the challenge and I already had some of this yummy plum-ginger jam in the pantry, so I rolled up my sleeves (or really changed into a tank top- turning on the oven in the summer turns our cozy little house into a sauna) and got down to it.

This was not a difficult challenge. I did have to grind up some almonds, but that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have been reminded of how yummy my jam is. I also made an emergency substitution of vanilla extract for almond extract. The almond extract seems to be on vacation from my pantry. Grating frozen butter into a flour mixture in a really warm kitchen was a bit trying. Unfortunately, I blindly followed the instructions for the baking portion. The recipe says to pop it in the oven for 30 minutes and to add 5 minutes if you ground your own nuts. So that's what I did. And as you can see, my tart is a little teeny bit on the well done side of life.

So what's the verdict? This tart is delicious! And I'm totally going to make it again!

Here's the fine print! The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart.. er.. pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers. If you haven't already.