Plum & Limoncello Tart: GBBO Week #6

Before I start with my review of this week's episode of The Great British Bake Off, you may recognize this tart if you follow my blog as I already posted it back in May. I am having to cheat a bit with my GBBO challenge this week because... I'm going to Hong Kong today!! So I obviously don't have time to bake anything, and this tart was the closest thing to what the bakers made this week. Hopefully I can still catch up on GBBO when I'm away on iPlayer, and I'll post reviews on the next couple of episodes when I'm back. Anyway, on to the review...
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It was pastry week on the Bake Off and the signature challenge for the bakers was to make a frangipane tart, which involved making shortcrust pastry. The tarts had to be open topped, which meant lots of pretty patterns with fruit on top. Paul warned the bakers not to overwork the pastry, and Mary warned against getting a soggy bottom!
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Both Paul and Tamal went for Christmas flavoured tarts. Paul's had pears poached in orange and cinnamon, and Tamal's had pears poached in mulled wine. They both got great feedback from the judges! Ian used his guinea fowl eggs to make a pear and raspberry frangipane, however the judges thought it needed glazing and the pastry was not crispy enough. Alvin had a big disaster due to timing issues and his tart was not cooked when the judges tried it.
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Mat made a pina colada tart, which I thought sounded so fun! And I loved how he made the pinapple look like the sun on top of the tart. The judges thought it looked good, but they couldn't taste the rum! Not everyone blind baked their tarts, which I thought was dangerous behavior. I always blind bake for big tarts like this. It seemed to me like some of the bakers weren't actually that experienced with pastry as some of them seemed confused about blind baking, and when to trim the pastry.
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The technical this week was pretty bizarre! They were asked to make flaounas, which are a Cypriot pastry with a cheese and sultana filling. They have two very weird ingredients in them: mastic, which is hardened reisin from a tree and is used to flavor various foods in Greece and Cyprus. And mahlepi, which is a spice made from ground up cherry stones. The Greeks add it to breads. Strange stuff! Of course Paul did not give the bakers much help at all and even Mary, who hadn't heard of flaounas either, said he was being totally unfair (but she still grinned evilly with him).
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The pastry had yeast in it, so the bakers all got confused and didn't know whether to knead it or not. The next confusing step was how they should look and they all folded them differently. Everyone was looking around in desperation to see what everyone else was doing, but none of them had a clue! Paul laughed as soon as he approached the gingham altar, most of them were well made, but they just didn't look like they were meant too. Tamal was 7th, Alvin 6th, Paul 5th, Nadiya 4th, Ian 3rd, Flora 2nd and Mat won!
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The showstopper this week was the 80s classic dinner party canape - vol-au-vents! The bakers had to make their own puff pastry from scratch, make two different types of vol-au-vents, and make 24 of each kind. Paul was looking for a good rise, for them to be nice and straight and be equally golden. Mary wanted to see beautiful layers in the pastry and for them to be well filled. Thinking about making any pastry (apart from shortcrust) from scratch makes me feel tired as it's so time consuming, I really feel for the bakers during challenges like this! Tamal made a pulled pork vol-au-vent that was inspired by a sandwich he'd had that he said was one of the top two sandwiches of his life, his other flavor was spicy chicken and coriander. They were a bit pale and topsy turvy according to Mary, but both of the judges adored his fillings.
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Ian went a bit fishy with some squid ink, bacon and scallop vol au vents. His wife didn't like the filling and neither did Paul and Mary. His pastry had risen well and they did really like his mushroom ones. Flora made chocolate puff pastry vol-au-vents filled with ganache, as well as savoury asparagus and parma ham. The judges loved both the appearance and flavours. She is certainly good at presentation and making all of her bakes look very atractive.
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Mat was definitely the vol-au-vent star with his full english breakfast and smoked trout filled delights. Paul said the lamination, shape and bake were all perfect, the flavours were gorgeous and well thought out. Mary loved the runny egg in the english breakfast vol-au-vent. Paul wasn't so lucky as the judges said his garlic and chilli prawn with risotto vol-au-vents were underbaked and his sweet vol-au-vents with creme pat, raspberry coulis and cream looked 'hideous'. I thought they looked really pretty!
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Nadiya made bengali korma and cod and clementine vol-au-vents. She had problems with her first batch of pastry so she made another batch, which put her behind on time. She ended up presenting them 'deconstructed' to the judges. They absolutely loved her fillings though! Alvin made chicken ala king and smoked salmon encroute. Unfortunately his pastry was raw, but they liked his fillings. He was so sweet apologising to the judges for his mistake.
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It makes me very sad to say that Alvin left this week. I absolutely love him, he is such a sweetheart and seems like the most lovely man. As much as I love him, I do think it was the right decision as he did not have a great week. Mat won star baker which was really nice and he definitely deserved it for those vol-au-vents! Next week looks like another change from the normal theme with old fashioned techniques, recipes from the past and Victorian bakes.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I have no time to bake anything from this week's episode as I'm going on holiday! So I'm re-posting this tart from back in May, but it's pretty yummy so I hope you don't mind. I love baking with plums as it makes them extra juicy and delicious. I guarantee this tart will really delight your friends and family if it's presented at the end of a meal.

I started by making some pastry. I have a recipe for shortcrust pastry that I stick to religiously as it always works. I started with 350g plain flour and 170g butter. I rubbed the butter into the flour, I then added in two eggs and mixed until a dough formed. I wrapped it in cling film and chilled it in the fridge for 1 hour.

After the pastry had been chilled I rolled it out onto some cling film, this makes it so much easier to lift and line the tin with.

I lined a 28cm diameter loose bottomed tart tin with the pastry and peeled off the cling film.

I lined the pastry with baking paper, then filled it with baking beans and baked on 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 15 mins.

I removed the baking beans and baking paper and put the pastry back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the pastry was fully cooked on the bottom.

I cut up 8 plums into thin wedges (you will need 6 - 8 plums depending on size) and arranged them in the pastry base. They do shift during baking and when the custard is poured in, but I liked the effect of having them arranged.

I made the custard while the pastry was baking. I whisked together the zest and juice of 2 lemons, 4 tbsp double cream, 100g ground almonds, 100g melted butter, 5 eggs and 200g golden caster sugar. I whisked it well, then gently stirred in 8 tbsp limoncello.

I placed the pastry with the plums in onto the oven shelf, then poured the custard in. I baked it on 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 25 minutes until the custard was set, but still had a slight wobble.

Once it was cooled fully, I dusted it with icing sugar. I was really pleased with how it turned out, and I love the effect of the plums on top and their vibrant color.

The juicy plums were a perfect accompaniment to the nutty sweet custard. This went down a storm when I took it into work, it was a rather large tart and disappeared very quickly! It would be a perfect tart on a sunny day, or you could warm it up with some custard.

I'm entering this into The Pastry Challenge, hosted by Jen's Food and United Cakedom. This month's theme is anything goes.
Recipe from BBC Good Food.