Fruit yoghurt sponge

Sorry I’ve been absent for a while – it was a triple whammy of New Year low, new job and new home computer.  It’s a fairly regular pattern I think: after all the richness of Christmas excesses my palate always starts craving something simple and wholesome around this time of year.  And what could be better than a simple sponge cake?

This cake is enriched by using yoghurt; I’ve experimented by using a flavoured yoghurt and matching it with some fresh fruit.  I went for blueberry because that was all my local supermarket had other than strawberry, and I am not made about strawberries baked into things.

I was hoping for the cake to take on the purple tinge of the yoghurt but, as you can plainly see, it didn’t.  What I didn’t expect – and what turns out to be the true joy of this cake – is that the sponge tastes of blueberry….

…let me clarify: the sponge itself tastes of blueberry.  Normally in such a cake, the sponge tastes of sponge and you get the burst of blueberry in your mouth when you bite into a blueberry.  However, with this cake, the flavoured yoghurt has infused the sponge resulting in the most wonderfully fruity tasting cake.  I loved it.

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
275g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
175g Greek style yoghurt – I used blueberry flavour
275g self raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
130g fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons light brown sugar to sprinkle on top of the cake

Method

Preheat oven to 180C/ fan oven 160C/ 350F/ gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and whippy.  Don’t skimp on this stage.

Beat in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time.

Stir in half of the yoghurt, followed by half of the flour.

Take a spoonful of the remaining flour and toss the blueberries in it to stop them sticking or sinking in the batter.

Stir in the second half of the yoghurt, the flour and all of the bicarbonate of soda.

Fold in the blueberries.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Sprinkle the light brown sugar over the top of the cake.

Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the sponge comes out cleanly.   Don’t panic if your cake takes longer – mine took about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes before de-tinning and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Blueberry sponge cake with cream cheese frosting

 

It’s all very well being selfless and baking to please others but sometimes you just need to be selfish and bake something to please yourself!  This week I had a hankering for blueberries baked in a simple sponge with cream cheese frosting.  Et voila!  I think blueberries are my favourite fruit to bake in a sponge – I love the way they break down, bleeding their juice into the sponge and also the magnificent pop of colour you get when cutting a slice.  It’s particularly effective when the outside of the cake is so plain and pale.

The cream cheese frosting is my favourite as it’s so smooth and creamy.  It’s great to team with a crumbly sponge because you can take some on the fork and use it to pick up all the crumbs.  This is one of my tests as to whether someone is a true cake lover or not.  (It may also double as a test for greedy guts! If so, I am guilty!)  A true cake lover will always gather their crumbs and eat them – after all, they are just smaller versions of the slice of cake.  An occasional cake eater will eat the slice and leave all the debris on the plate – it’s a total giveaway that this is not my kind of person!

I think this cake looks really good and could easily take pride of place on the afternoon tea table; don’t however assume that means it is difficult or time consuming to make – it is neither.  The sponge recipe and method is as basic as possible, as is the frosting.  It’s an example of great flavours and ingredients producing something simple but delightful.

Foolishly, I made double the amount of frosting.  I cannot explain what possessed me other than a greedy stupidity that the amounts set out in the recipe below didn’t look enough.  Hence, I was left with a large amount of cream cheese frosting.  We always joke that cream cheese frosting is so lovely we could just eat it by the spoonful so, eyeing the strawberries and left over blueberries I had sitting in a colander I threw together an impromptu dessert.  Serve it with some crisp biscuits if you want to look fancy.  Bonus dessert....the best kind!

Ingredients

For the sponge:

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g self raising flour
150g blueberries

For the frosting (this is enough to cover the top and sides of the cake):

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g cream cheese, at room temperature – I used Philadelphia

To decorate: 50g blueberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Start by making the sponge: beat together the butter and sugar until pale and whippy.  Don’t be tempted to skimp on this stage – it needs a lot of beating.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding some of the flour if it looks like it’s curdling.  (NB. If you have beaten the butter and sugar for long enough it will not curdle – so if your mix does make sure you beat for longer next time)

Beat in the vanilla.

Stir in the flour.

Gently stir in the blueberries taking care not to burst them.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes before de-tinning and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

Now make the frosting: start by beating the butter until it is pale and whippy.

Add the icing sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth and well combined.

Add the cream cheese and beat until the frosting is smooth, thick and fluffy looking.  I like to take a small amount, place it on my tongue and then press it up against the roof of my mouth – if I cannot feel any sugar crystals and the texture feels smooth and uniform i.e. no blobs of cheese in there, then I know it’s ready.  If the beating has made the frosting too soft to comfortably spread refrigerate for 20 minutes or so.

Spread the frosting over the top and sides of the sponge cake.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Blueberry sandwich cake

It seemed like too long since I’d made a good old fashioned sandwich cake.  Likewise anything with blueberries.  Likewise anything with curd.  Therefore I decided to incorporate all three and make a blueberry sponge cake sandwiched with blueberry curd and buttercream. 

Most of the components of this cake are adapted from other recipes I’ve featured on my site before – the new element is the addition of the natural yoghurt in the buttercream.  It adds a nice tang and helps to cut through the sweetness of the buttercream.  I was very pleased also with the blueberry curd; I’ve yet to meet a fruit curd I didn’t like (other than lemon, obviously!)

Adding some of the curd to the buttercream made it a wonderful colour whilst keeping it natural.  Regular readers will know that I’m not mad on adding colour for the sake of it (I will occasionally do so but it has to be natural), but here the curd adds flavour too; it was a particularly fruity buttercream!

I state in the recipe to have some extra blueberries for decoration.  I put some aside but then, barely ten minutes later, ate them having completely forgotten what they were saved for.  Luckily I had some wafer daisies in the cupboard!

Ingredients

For the blueberry curd:

225g blueberries
2 tablespoons water
140g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
35g unsalted butter

For the blueberry sponge:
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
200g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk
150g blueberries

For the buttercream:

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
400g icing sugar
3 tablespoons natural yoghurt
2 tablespoons blueberry curd

To spread on the cake: virtually all of the blueberry curd

To decorate the cake: handful of blueberries (I forgot why I’d saved some and ate them, hence no blueberries on my cake)

Method

Start by making the blueberry curd: place the blueberries in a saucepan with the water, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until the fruit has collapsed to a mush.

Pass through a sieve using a spoon (or sieving mushroom) to push through as much puree as possible.

Discard the pulp and put the puree either in a bain marie saucepan or in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (the bowl mustn’t touch the water or you’ll get scrambled eggs).

Add the caster sugar, eggs and butter and stir until all the ingredients are melted and combined.

Continue to stir until the curd thickens – this can take a while so don’t panic and think it’s gone wrong; I usually find it takes about 15 minutes.

Once you can leave a trail on the surface of the curd it is ready.  It will firm up more as it cools.

Remove from the heat.

Spoon into a bowl or jar – I sieve it at this point just to make sure there are no lumps - and leave to cool completely before refrigerating.

Now make the sponge: preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Line two loose bottomed 20cm round sandwich pans with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy – do not skimp on this stage.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding some of the flour if the mixture looks like it is curdling.

Fold in the flour and baking powder.

Stir in the milk.

Spoon the batter into the two pans and level the surface.

Scatter the blueberries over the top of both batters and press down gently.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the sponge comes out cleanly.

Cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out the sponges and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container until you are ready to ‘build’ the cake.

Now make the buttercream: beat the butter until it is soft and whippy.

Add the icing sugar, yoghurt and blueberry curd and beat until well combined and smooth.

You are now ready to ‘build’ the cake: place one of the sponges on the serving plate.

Spread the blueberry curd onto the sponge and top with some buttercream.

Place the other sponge on top.

Cover the cake with the remaining buttercream.

Refrigerate until 45 minutes before serving.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Apple and blueberry cake

Apples and blueberries in one cake?  That’s two of your five a day in one simple slice* Plus think of all those calories you’ll burn pouring the cream over the cake, lifting weights (ok, the spoon) and chewing.  It’s the cake for anyone on a January health-kick*

We had the cake warm, but not hot, from the oven with pouring cream and it was lovely.  The apples had a little tartness and the sugar sprinkled on top of them had crunch which gave many lovely textures while eating.

Mr CC is not a fan where fruit is baked in a sponge and makes it squidgy.  He liked this because the sponge remained crumbly as the fruit sits on top.  He’s not normally at home when I bake and the smell of this straight from the oven was too tempting for him....hence us eating it warm!

The weather is grim at the moment – grey, dark and mostly wet.  I know we’re getting off lightly compared to other parts of the country, and indeed other countries, but there was something cheering about this cake.  It was quick to make, colourful and flavoursome.  I’m not sure cakes can have personalities but if they could this one would be saying ‘hey, it’s not so bad – spring will soon be here’....and ‘eat me’.  All cakes say ‘eat me’.  It’s the law*

*May not actually be true (sadly)

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
165g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
225g self raising flour
125ml milk
1-2 eating apples, depending on size, peeled, cored and cut into slices
125g blueberries
2 tablespoons Demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and pale – it won’t go as whippy as some other mixes because of the ratios.

Beat in the vanilla.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir in the flour and milk until the batter is just combined – don’t over beat it.

Spoon into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.

Arrange the apple slices on top and then scatter the blueberries over the apple.

Sprinkle the Demerara sugar over the top.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Best check the cake after 40 minutes and, if it’s browning too quickly, cover the top loosely with foil.

Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack until it is cool enough to de-tin.

Leave to cool completely or serve warm.

Serve either warm for dessert with ice cream, or at room temperature with cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Blueberry cream cheese tart

 

This is what happens when you spend too much time thinking about what to bake!  I planned to make a blueberry tart or pie – nice and simple...but then I saw blueberry cream cheese tarts and my attention was well and truly grabbed.

My ‘baking with cream cheese’ vista has expanded recently as, after years of claiming he didn’t like it, the CCD (Caked Crusader’s Da) has discovered that he does.  Just thinking of all those years he’s erroneously denied himself cheesecake makes me want to weep.  If we were in a Doctor Seuss book he would be the unnamed character and I would be Sam I Am...and the tart would be green eggs and ham...which doesn’t sound quite so good for a baking site!

Anyway, back to the tart!  I loved making this one – the pastry looked like it was going to be a nightmare but then behaved impeccably; the filling looked scant but, when I dropped the blueberries in, filled the pastry case.  Blueberries never disappoint!

The cream cheese filling has a lovely acidity to it due to the addition of soured cream.  It works well against the juicy blueberries and the crumbly, biscuit pastry.  Surprisingly, the overall effect is light and easy to eat – it’s not like a heavy slice of cheesecake.  It tasted really fresh as the blueberries soften but don’t turn mushy and pop deliciously in your mouth.

I served it as a dessert with pouring cream (Mr CC thinks it’s not a dessert unless there’s pouring cream or custard on offer) but it would work just as well as a tea-time treat.  And it keeps for several days in the fridge so there’s no excuse not to make one and eat it all by yourself!

Ingredients

For the pastry:

175g plain flour
85g unsalted butter, cold
30g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold water

For the filling:

115g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
60g soured cream
3 eggs
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
70g caster sugar
450g blueberries – washed and dried

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and pulse until you have fine crumbs.

Add the egg and pulse again then – only if it’s needed to bring the crumbs together – add the water. [NB. If you don’t have a food processor rub the butter into the flour until you have crumbs, stir in the sugar, then the egg then the water]

At this point, you will have claggy clumps – not a uniform ball of pastry.

Tip the clumps out onto a work top and bring together into a ball using your hands.  Only handle the pastry as much as is necessary to form a ball.

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of clingfilm until it is large enough to line a 25cm loose bottomed flan tin.  Don’t grease the tin – the pastry is buttery enough not to stick.

If the pastry tears, patch it carefully as you don’t want any holes for the filling to leak out of.

You will have just enough pastry to line the tin and patch – don’t expect any leftovers!

Prick the bottom of the pastry case several times with a fork – this will stop the pastry rising during baking.

Place the pastry case in the fridge for approx 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.

Line the pastry case with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 10 minutes.

Remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes or until pale golden.

Put to one side while you make the filling.

Lower the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

Now make the filling: Beat together the cream cheese, soured cream, eggs, nutmeg, vanilla and sugar until thick and well combined.  It’s easiest to use the whisk rather than paddle attachment.

Pour into the pastry case and then scatter the blueberries over the top – some will disappear into the liquid, others will remain visible.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cheesecake element is set, but retains a bit of a wobble.  It will continue to set during cooling.

When completely cool, refrigerate until you wish to serve.

Serve either as dessert with pouring cream, or on its own as a tea-time treat.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Apple and blueberry tart

 

Apple and blueberry is such a beautiful combination in look and taste.  This tart looks quite fancy but is very easy to make.  It’s a twist on a bakewell tart really if you think about it – pastry, fruit, frangipane.  The main difference being that the fruit is fresh and sits on top of the frangipane rather than underneath in the form of jam.

It’s deceptive, but that’s really just one apple covering the top of the tart.  The trick is to slice it thinly.  I found the trickiest artistic decision placing the blueberries and making sure they were evenly distributed!  It took a steady hand to transfer the tart to the oven without making the blueberries roll all over the place!

I suppose this tart is more autumn than spring but who cares?  I fancied something comforting and fruit and almonds always hit the mark with me.  As with anything laden with almonds, the tart keeps well and actually improves with age.

Sometimes, you make a pastry and the whole time you’re making it you’re thinking “this is going to be such a nightmare to roll out”.  This was such a pastry.  When I bought it together to form a ball of dough my heart sunk.  It was so sticky.  It looked and felt like marzipan and I couldn’t see how this was going to become a lovely tart case.  The key is refrigeration:

After two hours in the fridge it rolled like a dream – I didn’t use any flour to roll it out (I don’t like changing the texture of the pastry by adding more flour), it didn’t crack or tear and I didn’t have to patch it in the tin.  Oh, and did I mention how delicious it is?  The almond gives it an almost shortbread like texture and flavour.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g golden caster sugar
1 egg
250g plain flour
30g ground almonds

For the filling:

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g golden caster sugar
150g ground almonds
2 tablespoons plain flour
3 eggs
1 dessert apple – I used pink lady but any apple such as golden delicious, granny smith, gala, braeburn etc would work
125g blueberries

Optional: icing sugar for dusting
To serve: cream

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the butter and sugar into a food processor and blitz until smooth and creamy.

Add the egg and blitz again.

Add the flour and almonds and blitz until a dough just starts to form.

Tip out onto a sheet of clingfilm and, using your hands, bring to a sticky ball of pastry.  Don’t worry that it is so sticky – it should feel more like marzipan than pastry at this stage.

Shape into a fat disc and wrap in clingfilm.

Refrigerate for approximately 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of clingfilm until it is big enough to line a 23cm loose bottomed flan tin.  No need to grease the flan tin – the pastry is buttery enough that it won’t stick.

Line the pastry case with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes.

Remove the paper and beans then return to the oven for a further 5 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Now make the filling: beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.  It won’t turn pale and fluffy because of the ratios and the fact it’s golden caster sugar.

Add the ground almonds and flour and beat again.

Beat in the eggs one at a time until you have a smooth cream.

Peel and core the apple, before cutting it into thin slices.  I cut the apple into quarters and aimed for at least four slices from each quarter.

Pour the almond mixture into the pastry case and spread out until it is even.

Place the apples on top.

Scatter the blueberries over the apple and almond.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until it looks golden, risen and set in the middle.

Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack.

If desired, dust with icing sugar.

Either serve warm with ice cream for dessert, or at room temperature with cream for afternoon tea.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Spelt, raspberry, blueberry and ginger cake

I’ve been dabbling with spelt recently (I have, at present, two other spelt recipes waiting in the wings to share) since Mr CC bought me a big bag of wholemeal spelt flour from his travels in Norfolk.  The flour was milled at LeatheringsettWatermill in Holt, where the mill has been working since 1802.

Spelt is an ancient grain enjoying a surge in popularity at present.  It is higher in vitamin B and protein than other wheat and some people with wheat sensitivity find that they can eat spelt due to its lower gluten content.  It certainly tastes different to ordinary flour and I’ve found that it adds more texture and a strong nutty flavour to my bakes.

This cake was meant to be a spelt, rhubarb and ginger cake.  For the past few weeks I have admired the forced rhubarb in my local supermarket and – of course – this week they didn’t have any.  It’s like they do it on purpose.  Grrr.  Knowing that spelt added nuttiness to a bake I opted for fruits that work well with nuts.  And I never tire of how beautiful raspberries and blueberries look baked into the top of a cake.

The topping was incredible and so simple.  Brushing the ginger syrup over the top of the hot cake gave a good surface for the sugar to stick to and it created a flavoursome crunchy thin crust.  Here it is just sprinkled:

Here it is after it’s cooled and sunk into the fruit:

There’s a forecast of snow for tonight.  I seem to be one of the few people I know who freely (and vocally!) admits to loathing snow.  Rather than stress at the weather forecasts I shall focus on my lovely cake!

Ingredients

For the cake:

450g raspberries and blueberries
140g unsalted butter
200g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
4 pieces of stem ginger in syrup – chopped as small as possible (I used my mini food processor)
200g wholemeal spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the topping:

Stem ginger syrup from the jar
3 teaspoons caster sugar

Method

Wash the fruit and leave to dry – there is nothing worse than putting wet fruit on top of a cake batter and watching it sink and ooze moisture over everything!

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Line a 18cm x 28cm pan with baking paper or non stick foil.  I used my mini roasting pan which was the perfect size.

Melt the butter over a gentle heat.

When melted, remove from the heat and stir in the brown sugar.

Put to one side and leave to cool for a couple of minutes.

Place the eggs, chopped ginger, flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl and mix.

Add the butter and sugar mix and stir rapidly to incorporate all the ingredients.  It will be a gloopy batter similar to ginger cake or sticky toffee pudding.  Take care to ensure no dry ingredients are stuck at the bottom of the bowl.

Pour into the prepared tin and tap sharply on the work top so the batter levels out.

Scatter the fruit over the top.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.  Check it after 3o minutes as I found the cake needed turning in the oven to ensure it cooked evenly.

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

While the cake is still hot brush some of the syrup from the ginger jar over the top of the cake – just enough so the whole top is shiny.

Scatter caster sugar over the top and leave the cake to cool completely.

Serve in large squares on its own, or with cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Blueberry bakewell tart

Mr CC is a curious chap in that he prefers pastry to cake.  I love both, but cake will always be my main love (after Mr CC, of course).  I’ve been dabbling more in pastry recently and find blueberries and pastry to be a lovely combination, probably textural – the juicy blueberries offsetting the crumbly pastry.  Yum.

The bakewell/frangipane filling is extra rich as it contains no flour at all; usually the recipe contains both ground almonds and flour, but this one uses only the almonds.  The taste is noticeably richer than a normal bakewell and has a good, firm texture.

I often find that anything with almonds is always better to eat the day after baking.  The almonds need time to settle and release their nutty oils and scent.  It is horrible having to ignore such a tempting treat but – if you can wait – it’s worth it!  It’s why I often store my baking in metal tins rather than transparent plastic...out of sight, out of mind!

The pastry for this tart is crumbly, light and buttery.  It is best to roll it out straight from the fridge while it is at its firmest.  If you let it get too soft it will fall apart, but it does patch well so it’s not all lost.

Mr CC has asked that I highlight the crumbly pastry and the pleasing contrast of the tart berries (they weren’t tart – he’s just trying to be like a Masterchef judge!) with the rich almond.  He has departed the room with the words, ‘and you can quote me on that’.  So I have.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

225g unsalted butter – straight from the fridge
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
275g plain flour
2 egg yolks

For the filling:

200g unsalted butter – at room temperature
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
200g ground almonds
1 teaspoon almond extract
250g blueberries
two handfuls of flaked almonds

To serve: thick cream, dusting of icing sugar

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the butter, sugar and flour into a food processor and blitz until you have buttery crumbs.  It won’t be as crumbly as some pastries at this stage. (You can use the rubbing in method if you don’t have a food processor, but as it’s so buttery you might find it tricky).

Add the egg yolks and pulse until the ball of dough is starting to come together.

Tip out onto a piece of clingfilm and work (touching as little as possible) into a fat disc of pastry.

Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or an hour if you can.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of clingfilm until it can line a 25cm loose bottomed flan tin.

Leave the overhanging pastry in place.

Line the pastry case with a sheet of baking paper or foil and weigh down with baking beans.

Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and beans and bake – uncovered – for a further 6 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool. 

Cut off any excess pastry; most will have fallen off during baking.

Lower the oven temperature to 180°C/160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Now make the filling: beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Don’t worry if the mixture starts to curdle.

Beat in the ground almonds and almond extract.

Spread the filling over the pastry case and level the surface.

Sprinkle the blueberries over the top and press down lightly.

Scatter over the flaked almonds.

Bake for approximately 35-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the filling comes out clean.  Don’t worry if it takes longer.

Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack.

Serve either warm, or at room temperature, with thick cream.  Dust with a little icing sugar before serving.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.