Apricot Bakewell Tart

Apricot Bakewell tart is a British dessert that has a crunchy pastry crust, sweet jam filling, and chewy almond cookie topping. It’s usually made with cherries but I love apricots more! I saw it on the Great British Bakeoff as a technical baking challenge and wanted to give it a try. You can use any jam flavor you like if you don’t have apricot on hand.

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Ingredients

Pastry:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup cold margarine
2 tbsp cold water

3 tbsp apricot jam

Almond frangipane topping:
2/3 cup margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup ground almonds
1 egg
1/2 tsp almond extract

Powdered sugar to sprinkle on top

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Directions

Make the pastry: in a medium bowl, mix the flour and cold margarine. Rub it together with your fingers to create fine crumbs, then add the cold water and mix it together to make a dough. Chill the dough for 1/2 an hour in the fridge.

Once it’s chilled, press the dough evenly into a 9″ circular baking tin, pressing it up the side of the tin too to make a nice edge. Put some dry beans on a piece of aluminum foil inside the pastry shell, and blind bake it at 400F for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and save them for reuse.

Make the almond frangipane: In a small pot, melt the margarine over medium heat. Remove from heat and mix in the brown sugar. Add the ground almonds, egg, and almond extract, and stir well to combine.

Spread the apricot jam over the pastry shell, then pour the almond frangipane mixture over top. Make sure it doesn’t spill over the edge of the pastry.

Bake at 400F for 35 minutes. Cool and sprinkle your apricot bakewell tart with icing sugar before serving.