Handsindough: Fresh raspberry tart

Versión Española

I had always been afraid of tarts. I thought that they were very difficult to make: prepare correctly the pastry, bake it, make a tasty filling... But then we tried it once with Aida and, although we didn't get the result expected, we ended up preparing something eatable and quite good. So now, although I take a lot of care to bake a tart (I still take it quite seriously), I dare to bake them. It is not as difficult as it seems!

These cake was quite tasty. I ate it with vanilla ice cream and was really good! I ate it cold, but I can imagine how good it would be a warm cake with the ice cream. Mmmmmmmm... And doesn't it look cute???

Before we start:

Difficulty: medium
Preparation time: 45 min
Cooking time: 25 min (cooking) + 30 min (cooling)
Cost: cheap
Origin: International
Recipe obtained from: Baking Bible, "Fresh raspberry criss-cross tart"

Ingredients (serves 6-8):

230g plain flour
Half teaspoon baking powder
60g almonds, finely grounded
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
100g golden caster sugar
115 butter, chilled and diced
1 medium egg + 1 egg yolk
Icing sugar, for sprinkling

For the filling:
350g strawberries
1 rounded tablespoon cornflour
1-2 teaspoons caster sugar, or to taste

Preparation:

Put the flour, baking powder, almonds, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl.
Add the pieces of chilled butter and work with the fingertips until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Add the egg and yolk and mix to make a soft dough. Cover the dough with a tea towel and chill for at least 30 minutes (until firm enough to roll out).
Turn out the dough on to a floured work surface and roll it out fairly thickly to a circle about 25cm diameter. This is easily done if dough is plae between sheets of baking parchment.
Use the pastry to line a 21,5cm loose-based flan tin, pressing the dough on to the base and sides. Trim off the excess pastry and use small pieces to repair any tears or holes, saving the remainder to make the strips of pastry lattice later. Chill the base and excess pastry for around 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the filling, mixing the fresh raspberries with the sugar and cornflour. Don't worry if the mixture is quite white: corn flour is used to absorb the water that raspberries let go when baked.After baking, raspberries will recover their color.
Re-roll the excess pastry and cur it into wide strips. I pinched them with my fingers to make them look nicer...
Damp the top edge of the pastry with water, spoon the filling into the pastry (squashing a little bit the raspberries with a fork) and arrange the pastry strips in a lattice on top, pressing the ends onto the top edge to seal (they will glue to the base thanks to the water).
Bake the tart on a preheated oven at 190ºC until golden, about 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with sugar.
Serve warm of at room temperature.

Comments:

The book recommends not to wash the fruits if possible. They should be picked over well, checking for blemishes and bugs.

Eat the tart within 2 days of baking.