Loose Bottomed Tart*

We have been enjoying some lovely soft fruits from a friend's garden recently. I cannot decide which is my favourite fruit - the strawberries seem to have been especially good this year. I had some blackcurrants in the fridge, and decided to use them up in a cake.

I modified a recipe from my Rachel Allen book - she uses 12oz cherries, but I think any juicy fruit would work.

12oz fruit [weighed without stones]

5oz self raising flour

pinch of ground cinnamon

2oz caster sugar

1 egg

3½oz melted butter

TOPPING

1 oz EACH of plain flour, caster sugar, cubed butter

¼tsp cinnamon.

8" diameter loose-bottomed/springform tin

• Preheat oven to 180'C [170' if fan oven] butter sides of tin, and baseline
• If using cherries, cut in half
• Sift flour, sugar, cinnamon in large bowl, ,make wall in centre
• Combine milk, egg, melted butter in another bowl, then stir into dry ingredients to make thick smooth mixture. Pour into tin. Spread fruit evenly over top.
• Mix topping ingredients in northern bowl, rubbing with fingertips to make crumb-like mixture. Scatter over fruit.
• Bake 30-35 minutes till golden brown and skewer comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in tin. Remove to wire rack.
• Dust with icing sugar and serve

Recipe says 'serves 6' but it looks quite rich, I shall aim for 8 slices. Cold butter straight from the fridge can be grated into the flour for the topping. But tonight was very hot, and I found it was going soft really quickly!

I hope Bob gets back from Worship Practice soon, I think it is time for tea and cake for supper!!

** Back in the 1980s when I used to watch Pebble Mill at One, the resident chef was explaining a similar recipe and said "And for this, I need a loose bottomed tart tin" and the BBC actually received complaints about his impropriety!