Since my younger sister is a baker by trade, I talked her into signing up for the Daring Bakers Challenge along with me, and since this weekend was our Seventh Annual Sisters Only Weekend, we decided to combine the two and do the June challenge together.

(Required text commencing: “The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.”)

The Bakewell tart is comprised of a short crust pastry, a layer of jam or curd, and a layer of frangipane, which is an almond ‘pudding’ (more like a very rich, moist cake). This was a new experience for me in several ways – the first of which is that I’d never made a tart before, so actually had to go track down tart pans before I could even start the challenge. Since we wanted to try several different fillings, I bought a set of six small tart pans. Oh, and of course there’s the fact that I had never even heard of frangipane before (let alone knew how to say the word).

After I picked my little sister up from the airport, we headed home, poured ourselves some coffee, and got started. She put together the short crust pastry dough while I washed all the tart pans, and then while the dough was chilling, I put together the frangipane. I’ve no idea where one goes to find almond meal around here (probably the natural foods co-op) but I recently got a new stick blender that came with a little chopper attachment, so I just bought a huge bag of almonds and ground them up using that, and it worked just fine.

Here’s the frangipane, once it was all mixed together.

The recipe had all sorts of cautions about how I shouldn’t worry if it looked like it was curdling. Um – it has bits of nuts in it. I would be surprised if it *didn’t* look a little lumpy.

Once the dough was chilled, my sister rolled out the first batch.

My attempts didn’t look nearly as pretty. However, since the ugly patched bits were covered with filling and frangipane, I figured it wasn’t all that much of a problem.

We made a double-batch, which was a total of a dozen tarts, and used the following fillings:

• Apple butter
• Lemon curd
• Spiced plum jam
• Pomegranate jelly
• Peach/blueberry/strawberry jam
• Sliced fresh peaches
• Nutella
• Chocolate

All the jams, jellies, and curds were all homemade, naturally, and the peaches were fresh from the CSA box that arrived on our doorstep this morning.

Here are the tarts, fresh out of the oven.

And here is a view where you can see the fillings (well, sort of). This image shows, from top to bottom, fresh peach, spiced plum jam, and chocolate.

By the time my older sister arrived for the weekend, the tarts had cooled enough to do a little tasting. And while we all agreed that they were pretty tasty, the verdict was unanimous that if we ever make these again, we use a LOT more jam and a LOT less frangipane. My favorite fillings were the spiced plum, apple butter, and Nutella, primarily because those were really the only ones where I could taste something besides the almond of the frangipane.

While I’m not sure I’ll be making these again any time soon (unlike last month’s challenge, where I’ve already made strudel #2, and will likely keep that in the general meal rotation going forward), it was certainly fun to make them. And of course it was especially fun to be able to bake them with my younger sister, since she lives far enough away that working together in the kitchen is a rare treat.