Simple blackberry tart with fennel blossom
Before it’s too late for blackberries – and there are still lots out there – get out and grab as many as you can. Even if you only eat them there on the spot, it’s worth it. If, on the other hand, you can save enough to make this blackberry tart, you won’t regret it.
It’s a riff on Amanda Hesser’s Peach Tart from Food52, a recipe that I took down from her Cooking Mr Latte book when I borrowed it from the Christchurch library when I lived in New Zealand waayyyyyy back in 2005. I never managed to actually make it then, and lost the recipe between moves / countries over the years but it stuck in the back of my head. I missed its original appearance on Food52 but, in fairness, I was busy in August 2011 painting a newly renovated cottage, baking a Small Girl, wrangling Little Missy and working with the Kiwi and Aussie to get a new business off the ground.
Now things are different. I’ve got more headspace for reading and rediscovery and recipe experimentation. Or, at least, time to stick recipe links into my want-to-try spreadsheet. This recipe has made it off that list and into my regular baking rotation. It’s worth baking with nectarines and raspberries, apples and blackberries (for those days that the girls don’t actually pick very much!) or any kind of seasonal fruit. There’s a lovely piece on Food52, a website which has many delightful worm holes to disappear into for an afternoon, about this recipe taken off-road by a variety of contributors which will give you lots of ideas to play with.
Simple blackberry tart with fennel blossom
While Amanda’s recipe is pretty much perfect as written. That said, ahem, I’ve changed the measurements from cups to metric and because this was a very opportunistic bake I didn’t have all the ingredients so I subbed melted butter for the canola and olive oils and vanilla for almond extract. I’ve also divided up the ingredients in a way that makes more sense to me. The fennel blossom is an optional but gorgeous addition. Serves 8. Leftovers are great for breakfast.
200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
25g light brown sugar
125g butter, melted
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g blackberries
Topping
30g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
100g light brown sugar
30g butter, melted
Fennel blossom, optional, to serve.
Preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan oven) and dig out a 28cm tart tin.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the flour, salt and sugar together. In a measuring jug, stir the melted butter, milk and vanilla until combined. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix gently. Tip into tart tin and, using your fingers, pat the dough evenly across the base and up the sides of the tin. You don’t want this to be too thick, it needs to be about 1/2 cm all around. Scatter the blackberries evenly across the base.
In a small bowl, mix the topping ingredients together: whisk the flour, salt and sugar together before stirring the butter through. It makes a rough non-cohesive mixture of pebbles and rubble. Sprinkle this over the top of the blackberries and bake for 40-45 minutes until the fruit juices are bubbling and the crust has browned. Allow to cool a little before sprinkling some fennel blossom on top and serving with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or natural yoghurt.
