Jam tart recipe
I could eat a whole packet of shop jam tarts in one sitting. And surely that would be three of your five a day covered given the different types of jam. My paternal Grandmother had a jam tart recipe using the leftover pastry when she made a Sunday apple pie. I loved the pies too.
George and I had a bonding moment recently and decided to make jam tarts together. His best part was the spoon licking (isn’t it everyone’s best part) throwing all thoughts of germs and health and safety to the wind.
The pastry recipe was from one of my first cookery books. The Dairy Cook Book, circa 1984. This came from our milk man at the time, but I have since bought a lovely second hand copy from Amazon.
It has some fantastic retro recipes, two of which gained me a shiny ‘A’ grade in O level Home Economics in the good old days when a) ‘O’ levels were difficult and and A actually meant something, b) cookery was a super important part of the school curriculum and c) I was young and thin.
We made our pastry in the Magimix, but you can, of course, go old school and make it by hand. We chose seedless raspberry, lemon curd and apricot jams for the tarts. If your fridge is anything like mine there will be numerous half jars of jam or curd lurking on the top shelf – use those.
George ate all the raspberry ones and I burnt half the roof of my mouth eating two of the lemon curd ones as they came out of the oven. If you have any left, these will keep in a tin for a couple of days. Although that’s optimistic in this house, given the level of teenagers that pass through our door.
Lucy x
Jam Tart Recipe
Rich Shortcrust Pastry
225g Plain Flour
Pinch of salt
125g butter, cut into small pieces
3-4 tablesspoons cold milk
Jams and spreads, various
I made our pastry in my Magimix, however, you can make it by hand. For the Magimix version add the flour and the salt to the mixer, add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then add enough milk for the pastry to bind into a soft ball. By hand, rub the small pieces of butter into the flour and salt until the breadcrumb stage, then add milk. Wrap the pastry in cling and leave in the fridge to rest for around 30 minutes.
Heat your oven to 180 degrees and butter your bun/tart tin.
Roll out the pastry on a floured board to about half a centimetre thickness then cut in circles using a fluted cutter that fits your bun/tart tin. Or a glass, or a jar, or whatever you have to hand. Press the circles of soft pastry into the tin and spoon in a heaped teaspoon of jam. You don’t want to over fill the tarts as the jam will overflow and burn and you have no chance of getting them out in one piece. So err on the side of caution jam wise.
Cook for around 15-20 minutes or until pastry lightly browned and jam bubbling nicely.
Leave to cool or the jam will blister your mouth, and then eat warm, with or without cream and custard.
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