If you’ve ever foraged, bought, or been given damsons you’ll know just how tricky they can be to deal with. Tiny, bluey-purple-skinned plums, damsons are tart to say the least. You probably wouldn’t want to eat them fresh. They are best cooked up and made into damson jam, damson crumble, or used in cakes, fruit tarts, and other puddings.

Removing the stones from damsons

Removing the stones from damsons is the bit I always find the most frustrating and time consuming. Luckily you’ll find full instructions in my damson jam post; you can pick out the stones either before you use your damson purée or after you’ve made jam.

Using up your damsons

This year I was given eight kilos of damsons which I turned into jam and compote. It took me a whole afternoon to remove all the stones. I’ve frozen the compote in a plastic container (make it by mixing in 10-15g of icing sugar for every 100g of fruit purée). Because it’s quite soft you can scrape frozen compote off the top with an ice cream scoop and add it to yogurt, porridge, or fruit salads. You only need a small spoonful or so at at time.

If you’ve got so much jam you’re not sure what you’ll do with it all, this recipe is a great way to use some of it up. And it makes a delicious alternative to the usual raspberry jam most traditional bakewell tart recipes use. It’s easy to make and once baked you can freeze the tart whole or the slices individually. If it lasts that long, obviously!

A quicker and healthier bakewell slice

There’s no need to bake the pastry blind for this recipe, making it quick and easy.

I used wholemeal spelt flour for the pastry and soft brown sugar for the topping but you can use wheat flour or white spelt flour and caster or granulated sugar if you prefer. If you’re not using an egg for your pastry you can make half the quantity as you won’t need the full amount. You can also replace all the flour with a gluten-free alternative to make it gluten-free.

The quantity of jam in this recipe means it’s never going to be ‘healthy’, but at least you’ve got some fruit and nuts in there!

Recipe

Ingredients

Pastry

250g wholemeal spelt flour or plain flour

125g margarine or butter

1 egg

Filling

100g margarine or butter

100g soft brown or caster sugar

2 eggs

150g ground almonds

75g SR flour or plain/spelt flour plus 1 tspn baking powder

Topping

40g flaked almonds

Method

Set the oven to 175°C.

Make the pastry:

Sieve the flour into a large bowl. If you are using wholemeal flour you will need to tip the bran out into the bowl once you have sieved the finer bits: it won’t all go through the sieve.

Add the butter or margarine in small pieces. Rub in using the tips of your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Beat the egg and add to your pastry mix. Stir it in to begin with and then bring it together with your hands to make a dough. Knead very briefly, just to make sure it’s properly combined.

Leave to chill in the fridge for a while if you can.

You should only need about half of your pastry: the rest can be frozen until you need it or used for something else. Roll it out thinly and use it to line an 8″ square traybake tin.

Spread your damson jam evenly over the top of the pastry. Chill while you are making the topping.

Make the topping:

Put the butter or margarine and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat together until the mixture is pale and creamy.

Beat the eggs together and then add them, a little at a time, to the butter and sugar mixture, making sure each amount is properly incorporated before adding the next lot.

Fold in the ground almonds and the flour. Make sure they are fully mixed in but take care not to overwork.

Cover the jam and pastry base with your topping and gently smooth it out evenly. Sprinkle over your flaked almonds.

Bake for around 30-35 minutes until it’s browned, risen, and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the pan for a while before cutting into slices and cooling on a rack.

Enjoy with a cup of tea!

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Dairy-Free Baking, Desserts, Fruit, Fruit picking, gluten free baking, healthy baking, Jam making and Preserves, Pastry, Recipes, Uncategorized, Using Alternatives

Tags: almond flour, bakewell slice, bakewell tart, baking, cake, damson, damson jam, dessert, flaked almonds, foraging, fruit, gluten free, gluten free baking, ground almonds, pastry, recipe, seasonal, seasonal cooking, spelt flour, spelt pastry, traybake