Not long to go till we can eat ourselves silly in the name of tradition, people! Loosen your belts! I hope you still get to celebrate this year somehow, even if it’s in a much smaller circle, and if you do, I bet you are in need of a good dessert recipe… Don’t worry, I have just the recipe you need, especially if you are not as much of a chocolate fiend as I am (if you are, try this).
My Christmas dessert this year is inspired by a traditional English dessert, known as Bakewell Tart, but with a Christmassy twist. Although the original is named after the small English market town of Bakewell, apparently there is no evidence that it was created there. It sounds like it started off as a jam tart topped with egg custard until the 1900s when it got replaced by an Italian almond mixture known as frangipane. As I am a big fan of all things almond and frangipane is probably my second favourite type of dessert, it naturally came to mind when I tried to come up with a Christmas dessert that does not include chocolate (it was hard!!!) I have decided that making a bakewell tart with Christmassy flavours is what I feel like this year. To achieve this, I flavoured my frangipane mixture with generous amount of orange zest and some cardamom and sandwiched it between two different textures of cranberry which, aside from looking beautiful, provide beautiful flavour and texture contrast. There is a layer of cranberry jam at the bottom of the tart and the top is generously studded with whole cranberries that become jammy and juicy once baked. Both of these layers offer a much needed relief from the sweetness of pastry and frangipane filling. The beautiful thing about this dessert is that, pastry aside, it doesn’t require that much skill to make. All you need to do is spoon the jam (I used shop-bought jam) at the bottom of the tart case, whisk and stir frangipane ingredients together to top the jam with and finally place some whole cranberries on top. That’s it. Simple, yet divine. I hope you will enjoy it as much as we have.
60 g / ¼ cup refined coconut oil, melted and cooled or other neutral tasting oil 110 g / heaped ½ cup caster sugar, coconut sugar OR maple syrup 15 g / 2 tbsp all purpose flour (I use this one for GF version) 60 ml / ¼ cup aquafaba, homemade or shop-bought, at room temperature 150 g / 1½ cups almond meal zest of 2 oranges ¾-1 tsp ground cardamom ½ tsp baking powder 2 tsp vanilla extract ½ tsp orange blossom water or almond extract 300 g / ¾ cup cranberry jam or jelly* 100 g / 1 cup frozen cranberries**
This recipe has been adapted from my earlier frangipane and bakewell tart recipe.
