So for pastry week, I wanted to join in without piling on the calories so decided to try to adapt a bakewell tart into a 'clean eating' bakewell tart.
Just to clarify what 'Clean' eating means to me - it is not about 'good' food and 'bad' food as I totally believe in a healthy balance and occasional treats. For me it is about using healthier alternatives to refined sugar and flour where possible and just trying to make recipes that little bit healthier.
So in the case of the Bakewell tart this meant, using fresh berries (I used strawberries just because I had some in the fridge) rather than sugary jam, making a pastry from different ingredients to the usual flour and butter and trying to make an almondy filling without refined sugar.
So for the pastry case I used Henrietta Inman's recipe for Hazlenut pastry (I have the wonderful Clean Cakes book which I often rave about but you can also find the pastry recipe here). I made half the recipe quantity which made two small tarts and two tiny thumprint tarts with the leftover pastry.
I decided upon the hazlenut pastry rather than an almond pastry that is also in the book (and also found here) because I didn't want it to become too almondy as it has the almond frangipane style filling.
Once the pastry was baked and cooled, I filled with a layer of my 'clean eating frangipane'. This was a simple mix of 50g ground almonds, 1 tbsp maple syrup, a bit of non-aroma coconut butter, and a splash of Rude Health Almond drink.
Finally for the 'jam' I blitzed up some fresh strawberries (very approx 200g?) together with chopped dates (approx 40g) with a spoonful of chia seeds. Again the actual proper recipe can be found in Henrietta's Clean Cakes book or there are loads of Chia Jam recipes online but I just tend to guesstimate. I did prefer using dates to sweeten it as normally I use maple syrup but somehow I felt the dates worked better. I love that there is no faffing about with cooking this jam and it tastes so fresh because of being raw.
Finally some sliced almonds and a drizzle of dark chocolate to garnish and my clean eating strawberry bakewell tart was ready!
In the interests of honesty, the kids didn't enjoy it much, but me and Richard loved it as we've grown used to using lots more of these healthy ingredients lately.
Reading about Mummy Mishap's chocolate pastry this week, reminded me of when I did make some proper pastry that turned out really well earlier in the year - you can read my full post here but even I was impressed with myself - which never happens!
Linking up with Mummy Mishaps Great Bloggers Bake Off
i love how you have adapted the recipe to make it cleaner. i have to admit that my bakewell tart was very sweet, despite using a little less sugar than Mary called for her in her recipe. i am not surprised that the children may have not found it sweet enough, I might be the same but i would love to try it to compare.
ReplyDeletei am off to look at your very pretty chocolate tarts now
thank you for linking up x x
I read somewhere that in most recipes you can actually get away with less sugar so i try to do that when i can in baking. Also using unrefined alternatives to sugar can mean that you use less of them - for example whenever i use palmyra jaggery, i only need a tiny amount of it. x
DeleteThese look delicious Rebecca and so healthy, I love the twist on the Bakewell Tart xx
ReplyDeletethanks so much Cathy x
DeleteWhat a great twist on the usual Bakewell Tart. I'm the only person in my house that likes Bakewell, my kids don't like jam !!! and no-one really cares for frangipan apart from me (I'll eat anything obviously!) I didn't go for an alternative, in fact I'm having a go at making my own filo pastry this afternoon, so I may not be joining in this week ;)
ReplyDeleteWow filo - oh my goodness - i wouldn't even dream of attempting that in a million years - i am so impressed! You've got to tell us how you get on whatever happens! x
DeleteThese look wonderful. Think I am going to need to look into clean eating x
ReplyDeletethanks Louise. x
DeleteThey're so pretty, love them!
ReplyDeletethanks Lucy x
DeleteThey look fab Rebecca....and a damn site cleaner than my Bakewell with a huge amount of icing sugar for the icing!! OH thaough it was a typo when he read how much was in it!! lol
ReplyDeleteAngela x
thanks Angela - sometimes things just go like that in baking don't they - i look forward to having a read to see just how much icing sugar was involved!!! x
Deleteinteresting variation on a bakewell. Have to say I dont like bakewells with icing on top as far too sweet and I consider myself to have a sweet tooth.
ReplyDelete