Great British Bake Off finalist shares his festive recipe
Serves 6 – 8 people
This is a quick and easy tart to make. As it’s a Christmas recipe, a time of year when we are all low on time, I’m even going to recommend you use ready-made good quality short crust pastry. There is no blind baking of the pastry required. Kept in an air-tight container it will last 3 days.
So what is it? A round short crust pastry tart filled with sweet mincemeat and a spiced almond frangipane. Topped with a fondant icing drizzle and glace cherries. Fantastic as a dessert or ideal for a lazy afternoon with a cup of tea. I like to serve it with a dollop of mascarpone cheese on the side.
Essential equipment:
A 23cm non-stick tart tin
Ingredients:
250g ready-made good quality short crust pastry.
For the tart filling:
125g unsalted butter (softened)
125g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1 tbs plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
125g ground almonds
220g good quality sweet mincemeat
Handful of flaked almonds
For the topping:
50g fondant icing sugar
A little water
Glace cherries
Method
• Preheat your oven to 160c fan/180c/Gas 4
• Place a round piece of non-stick baking parchment in the bottom of your tart tin. Roll out the pastry to a thickness of around 3mm on a well-floured surface and line the tin with it. Trim off the excess pastry and place the lined tin in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
• Take the mincemeat and evenly spread it out in the base of the lined tin. Don’t go right to the edge as this helps the frangipane filling stick to the case.
• Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. This takes about 5 minutes in a mixer. In the meantime crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them lightly.
• Slowly add the eggs into the creamed sugar and butter mixing all the time until incorporated. If the mixture splits a little, that’s fine.
• Now add all the rest of the ingredients except the flaked almonds and mix well until combined.
• Spread this mixture evenly over the sweet mincemeat in the tart tin.
• Sprinkle over the handful of flaked almonds.
• Place in the lower half of the oven and bake for about 45 – 50 minutes until the filling is set and a skewer placed in the filling comes out clean.
• Allow to cool in the tin, then remove and place on your serving plate.
• Make the fondant icing by adding a little water until you have a fairly thick paste. Drizzle over the tart using a disposable piping bag or a spoon.
• Decorate with glace cherry halves. I used red and green ones for a more festive feel.
