Lemon bakewell tart.

I must admit I don’t know what a traditional bakewell tart should be like, but I copied the recipe from the most recent Good Food. I needed a boost of self confidence by cooking something good, pasta worked, so did the tarts, which ended up on the floor at some point, because of me being clumsy, but I saved them somehow.

They’re very lemony, the pastry was made by combining 85 g of butter, a zest of 1 lemon, 50 g of icing sugar,  1 egg yolk, 200 g of plain flour, nicely mixed up into dough and placed in the fridge while the filling was being prepared. Zest of 2 lemons, 100g of soft butter, same amount of caster sugar, 2 whole eggs, 85 g of ground almonds and 25 g of plain flour.

While I prepared the tins with the pastry( no blind baking this time), some lemon curd went on the bottom and then the filling. Finished with flaked almonds and baked in 200 degrees for about 25 minutes. Sprinkled with icing sugar when out of the oven.

Nice, lemony, I’m happy with it!

…from Italy, with love.

I brought a packet of very large pasta from Italy, almost as big as a small fist. I bought it with the thought of stuffing and baking under some nice sauce. Which is just what I did tonight. I roasted off some butternut squash, with a shallot or two, mashed it with ricotta and toasted pine nuts, seasoned well and then stuffed the pasta shells with it- pipping bags came handy, again. The sauce I made to go with it needed to be quite sharp, as the filling was quite sweet, so a can of tomatoes on top of fried shallot and leeks, thickened with cream and flour.Finished off with an insane amount of fresh basil.

Baked in the sauce and under parmesan until cooked and bubbly.

Not a stunning photo, but 9 out of 10 when it comes to the taste.