I have never ever heard of a bake well tart being made in my household.

Before the bake off shows, I didn’t even know such a thing existed.

I have never really had the urge to get up after watching the bake off to make a bake well tart. Mainly for two reasons, one it has eggs in and secondly royal icing.

I myself have never worked with royal icing, I find it to be a very daunting ingredient to work with and yet everyone seems to be decorating their cookies with it, except me.

I came across an eggless version of this in a book and the original recipe said 4 tablespoons of jam, when I put the required amount it looked empty so me being me, I just emptied the entire tin into the casing of the tart and hey presto it worked this time around.

My mother was a bit worried when she read the list of ingredients because everything from the filling to the icing required almond essence. She has warned me never to put too much almond essence into anything because it isn’t a nice flavour. Not that we don’t have a big bottle of this stuff just standing in pantry looking at you every time you open the cupboard.

A word of advice, never dip your finger into the almond essence bottle to taste what it tastes like, I learnt that the hard way… the aftertaste never goes away until the next day.

All in all this was a super easy tart to make and super delicious. I even managed to make the feather which in itself is an achievement.

Of course the tart was supposed to set before cutting, we couldn’t wait and we landed up eating the cake 10 minutes landing, dripping icing and all.

Ingredients for the pastry:

• 110g x margarine, room temperature.
• 220g x self raising flour.
• 4 x tbsp. water.
• 450g x smooth apricot jam.

Method for the pastry:

• Place the self raising flour in a bowl, and using your fingers, rub the margarine into the flour until it resembles crumbs.
• Add the water and knead till you get a nice smooth dough.
• Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out into the size of your circular flan pan.
• Careful fit the pastry into your pan and cut off any overhanging excess pastry.
• Evenly spread the jam over the bottom of the pastry and pop into the fridge, while you get the rest of the filling ready.

Ingredients for the filling:

• 110g x butter.
• 110g x castor sugar.
• 60g x rice flour.
• 80g x ground almonds.
• 60g x desiccated coconut.
• 2 x tbsp. milk.
• 2 x tbsp. cream.
• ¼ x tsp almond essence.
• 80g x glace cherries, halved.
• 80g x almond flakes.

Method:

• In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.
• Add in the rice flour, ground almonds and coconut, mix to combine.
• Add in the milk, crema and almond essence and mix to combine.
• Fold in the cherries and flaked almonds.
• Evenly spread the mixture ontop of the jam layer.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes on until the top is golden brown.
• Turn every 10 minutes and don’t be scared if it still seems wobbly when you take it out the oven, that is just the hot jam.
• Allow to cool completely.

Ingredients for the royal icing:

• 300g x icing sugar.
• 3 x tbsp. water.
• 1 x tsp almond essence.
• A drop of pink food colouring.

Method:

• In a bowl, whisk together the icing sugar and water till nice and smooth.
• Add the in the almond essence and give it a good stir.
• In another bowl, place about 3 tbsp of the white royal icing.
• Add the food colour and stir till mixed.
• Place the pink food colouring in a piping bag and set aside.

To assemble this cake:

• Evenly spread the white royal icing over the top of the tart.
• Using the pink food colouring, draw lines across the white icing.
• Using a tooth pick drag in at 90 degrees through the lines to create the feathered effect.
• Allow to chill for the icing to set before serving.