Cherry bakewell tart

Writing a masters thesis is hard work and one has to reward themselves for a job well done. The cherry bakewell tart is one of my favourites, but making it is quite a hassle, so I only make it on special occasions. Finishing a thesis is a good enough reason, I think.

Cherry bakewell tart

Crust: 1/2 of the crust recipe from here.
Use it to thinly line a medium size baking tin. Preheat the oven to 170C. Cover the dough with baking paper and fill it with rice for weight. Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, then remove the rice and bake it for 5 more minutes. Set aside to cool.

Filling I: The cherry jam
300g cherries
 1tbsp potato starch
70g sugar (or to taste, I never measured that)

Boil the cherries and sugar with a little bit of water until cooked. Homogenise(sciency!) it with a blender. Mix the potato starch with 2 tbsp cold water or cooled(!!) cherry juice from the pot and quickly stir it into the cherry mush. Cook the jam for a little longer until it thickens and set aside.

Filling II: Almondy goodness
150g ground almonds
3 eggs
100g butter, softened
100g sugar
almond extract (1/2 tsp)

Whisk together the butter and sugar, followed by eggs, one at a time. Add the almond extract and fold in the ground almonds.

Assembly:
Cover the bottom of the crust with the cherry jam. Carefully pour Filling II over the jam. Bake at 175C for about 30 minutes until it's golden brown.

Glaze:
100g caster sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Once the tart is ready, let it cool a little, then pour the glaze over the tart and let it set for about an hour.
In theory, it should make about 12 servings. In practice...well, it's an amazing tart.

The tart can also be made in muffin tins. These tiny cherry bakewell tarts were made for Aapos birthday in November.

Recipe stolen and modified from here