An old fashioned tart

For a Potluck lunch at work this coming Friday, I've been asked to provide Chris with a home made Bakewell tart big enough to share with his colleagues. I was born in Derbyshire so ought to be able to do this. Once upon a time women accomplished nothing but such things; our generation must be over-pampered because I found it quite a challenge.

To create a Bakewell tart in the right sequence of steps, what you should do first is line a 23cm-diameter pie tin with pastry. If you're making the pastry yourself, use about 100g fat (I used margarine) and about 200g plain brown and/or white flour, combine into crumbs, add enough chilled water to make the pastry stick together and roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, trim and thicken the edges. If you're feeling fastidious, clean up the resultant mess before finding the red jam that you must smear over the surface of your pastry pie shell with whatever utensil comes to hand.

Then make the filling. This consists of 80g fresh breadcrumbs, 80g sugar, 80g ground almonds, the grated rind and juice of a lemon, 80g melted butter (or half and half butter and good quality margarine with no cholesterol content) and two eggs, with their yolks separated from their whites.

I had ready-ground almonds to hand, but had to produce the breadcrumbs from scratch, using a couple of aging (but not yet mouldy) bread rolls and a thick slice of toasting bread. Crumble the bread into smallish lumps and then finish off the process with a bladed food processor. I used a small hand blender, but if it's set to work in a wide bowl the crumbs will spin off in all directions, liberally sprinkling your kitchen surfaces. Believe me, it's better to use a tall, thin container and make the breadcrumbs in small batches. I assume everyone knows how to grate and squeeze a lemon. Don't omit the lemon as this gives the pie its essential flavour.

In order to separate the eggs you'll also need a special gadget unless you're dexterous enough to skim yolks from whites without the yolks getting broken as they spill in a slimy manner over the edge of the cut shells. Don't use old eggs or eggs from battery hens or you're doomed to failure. Catch the egg whites in a small bowl on the side and plop the yolks straight into the sweetened breadcrumb-ground almonds mixture that you have moistened with your lemon juice and melted butter. As you stir, you will find the consistency quite stiff, but this can be softened with the egg whites. Pick out any bits of egg shell that have fallen in before beating the slime to a fluffy whiteness that forms peaks. I did it with a hand held whisk. Fold these thoroughly beaten egg whites into the rest of the filling with a large metal spoon and then scoop it into the pie shell and smooth over the surface.

The tart then needs baking at 350°C for just over half an hour until the filling is firm, with a golden-brown surface. Let it cool and settle down before removing from the tin. The surface will subside a little. When the tart is cold (or thawed out again after freezing) it can be coated with white or pale pink icing (made from icing sugar and diluted, seedless, red jam) and decorated with glaciated cherry halves around the perimeter. A small segment makes a satisfying dessert.

A nice variation of this recipe is to use stewed, sweetened gooseberries (in season) as a base for the filling, instead of red jam, or to top the pie with sliced almonds instead of icing sugar.