My love of black currants is the legendary stuff of legend. Unfortunately, they’re not readily available in America, and my tiny black currant bush doesn’t produce very much in the summer, let alone in January. What bad luck! But black currant jam and creme de cassis are readily available in America. What good luck! For a while now, I’ve been wanting to make a bakewell tart…a tart with a pate sucree crust, a layer of jam, and a layer of almond-cake-like frangipane. I have such fond memories of eating them as a child, when we lived in England, out of a little box, with fondant and a cherry. Mine would be a little different, though. Of course I wanted to use black currant jam. And then I decided to add dried tart cherries and chocolate chips, for a balance of deliciousness. I soaked the cherries in cassis, then mixed them with the jam and the chocolate, and, I must say, the combination is killer! Especially together with the crispy cookie-like crust and the soft fragrant almond topping. A wonderful combination of crunchy, chewy, sweet and tart.

Here’s Ska Jam by Tommy McCook and the Supersonics

1 batch pate sucree

1 1/4 cup flour
6 oz cold butter
1/4 t. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla

Mix the flour, sugar and salt. Cut in the butter in little pieces and mix till you have a crumb-like consistency.
Add the egg and vanilla, and knead till you have everything well-mixed in a workable dough. Roll into a ball and wrap with foil or plastic. Put in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.

3/4 cups dried tart cherries
3 T cassis
3 heaping T. black currant jam (or you could use any other flavor, really, but why would you?)
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips.

Chop the cherries up a little bit, and mix them with everything else. Leave to soak while you make the frangipane.

Frangipane…

8 oz butter, softened
1 cup flour
1 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 t. amaretto (or you can use almond essence)
pinch of salt

Cream the butter. Add the sugar, eggs, vanilla and amaretto. Then stir in the flour and almonds. You’ll have a very thick batter.

To assemble… Prebake the tart crust. If you have a tart pan you’re golden! If you don’t (I don’t!) you can use any straight sided cake pan. I found that a springform pan worked well. Butter and flour it. Roll out the dough to be about 1 inch wider than the bottom of your pan. Press it into the pan so that you have a rim of one inch. You can make this look nice with a fork all along the top. I actually used two pieces of tin foil, pressed across the bottom of the pan and up the edges a bit to help the crust from wilting. It’s fine if it does a little bit though. It will still look nice in the end.

Bake at 375 for 15 or 20 minutes, till it’s just set and starting to brown.

Spread the cherry-chocolate mixture over the crust.

Dollop the frangipane batter over the top in spoonfuls, and then use a knife to smooth everything over and make the surface smooth and even.

Bake at 375 for 30 – 40 minutes, till it’s set and starting to brown.