Midweek Munchies: Jam Tarts

There is something truly wonderful about Jam Tarts. I don’t know if it is the simple wonder of having a small open pie that you can fit in your mouth in one fail swoop, or the fact that it bellows nostaliga and they are the perfect elevenses treat.

I whack together a batch of these on days when life is getting a little bit too serious and jam is the only way to cure grown-up behaviour.

Ingredients

• 180g plain flour
• 60g icing sugar
• 120g butter
• 2 egg yolks (or 1 egg yolk + 2 tsps of water)
• A jar of jam (I always use my surplus amounts of homemade jam, but I won’t tell if you use shop bought)

Method

1. You need to make the pastry early as it needs a good hour and a half of chilling.
2. Sift flour and sugar into a bowl and then quickly rub in the butter. Make sure you only use your fingers for this, as your palms make it all too hot. You can ensure this by lifting your hands up out of the bowl as you rub in the butter. This could get messy so be careful.
3. Add enough of your yolk mixture to make the pastry come together.
4. Flatten out into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for an hour to chill.
5. Roll out your pastry onto a floured surface and cut your circles out using a cutter (or the top of a pint glass works quite well as I found out at Uni!). Make as many rounds as you can and place them into bun trays.
6. Put back in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 200ºC or Gas Mark 6.
8. Remove Bun trays from fridge and dollop in a small amount of jam into each round. DON’T PUT TOO MUCH IN. You may think it looks meager and sad, but trust a girl who has on more than one occasion, had to hack her jam tarts out of their tins due to jam-like cement that has overflowed.
9. Bake for 15 minutes. You may need a little longer or a little less dependant on your oven. Don’t let the tarts get too brown, just golden.
10. Take bun tins out of the oven and let the tarts cool in the tins.
11. Fish the tarts out of the tins when completely cool and serve.

YUM! You could make these a little more festive by using Cranberry Jam!

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