Mrs Beeton's Bakewell Pudding

After accidentally making only half a treacle tart, I decided to fill the second half of the pastry dish with Bakewell pudding instead. Since the first half of the bake was to make a pastry base anyway it meant one less batch of pastry to get my fingers into, literally.

It seems the trick is to not overwork it. As soon as you've added a couple tablespoons of water, press it together and do not overmix it. Rolling out can only be done two or three times before it stops being flaky.

Pro-tip - use a rolling pin to pick up your rolled out pastry. The pie/tart tin I have was an inch bigger than the recipe called for, so I used all the pastry, rolled out nice and thin, and skipped the lattice affect.

Making the filling was a breeze - note, I did NOT reduce the amounts as I am discovering that The Best of Mrs Beeton's Afternoon Tea is very frugal with its filling amounts, so I used the same amount as listed in the recipe below.

I already had half the tart filled with treacle tart filling, so I spread on some apricot jam on to the other half of the tart, then put the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and mixed. The recipe says to 'pour' but I found the texture to be far too dry to actually pour.

Instead, I spooned it on top of the jam, creating a visible line where treacle tart ended and bakewell pudding began.

Luckily, both tarts required the same temperature and bake time, although the jam bubbled over onto the treacle side during cooking.

Everyone who tried the tart much preferred the bakewell pudding side to the treacle tart side. The sweet almonds and moist jam blended well with super thin pasty.

Mrs Beeton's Bakewell Pudding

Strawberry or apricot jam

50g butter

50g caster sugar

1 egg

50g ground almonds

50g cake crumbs (or soft white breadcrumbs)

few drops almond essence

icing sugar for dusting

Short crust pastry

100g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

50g margarine

flour for rolling out

Set the oven at 200C/gas 6. To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add enough cold water to make a stiff dough. Press the dough together lightly.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use to line an 18cm / 7in flan tin. Spread a good layer of jam over the pastry base.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then add the almonds, cake crumbs and essence. Beat until well mixed Pour into the flan tin on top of the jam.

Bake for 30minutes or until the centre of the pudding is firm. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve hot or cold.