Make Homemade Jam Tarts
Edited by Graciela Franchesca Rosario, Lynn, Graeme, Olivia and 1 other
A jam tart is a delightful snack. So aside from egg or other fruit flavors of the tart, you can use jam as a topping as well. To make lemon tarts, you can use lemon curd and sugar, as with jam making. Honey is sweet, but is not applicable to jam making. And sugar of any kind can be expensive. Tarts have been considered somewhat outdated, but they are making a comeback.
Contents
Ingredients:
For tarts
- 2-3 tbsp. cold water
- 100 g (4 oz.) butter for greasing, an equal mix or cubed of lard and butter
- 55 g (2 oz.) cooking margarine, like Stork
- 55 g (2 oz.) refined vegetable fat, like Cookeen
- You can use just cooking margarine like Stork instead of Cookeen and Stork. Using both offers a fairly lighter shortcrust pastry.
- 100 g (3 ½ oz.) white caster sugar
- 1 orange, zest only
- Pinch of salt
- 250 g (8 oz.) plain flour/all purpose, for dusting
- 250 g (9 oz.) ready-made shortcrust pastry
For the jam filling
- 1 vanilla pod, split
- 450 g (1 lb.) golden caster sugar
- 450 g (1 lb.) strawberries, hulls removed, or any fruit jam or lemon curd, plus extra to serve
- 1 tbsp. rosewater
- Clotted cream, to serve
- 1 tbsp. orange liqueur
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Pastry resting time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Skill Level: Easy
Yield: Approximately 18 tarts
Preparation:
- 1Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 12-16 hole tart mold with a little butter.Advertisement
- 2Put grease-proof paper on a baking tray and sprinkle on the white caster sugar and orange zest. Place it on the lowest shelf in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the orange zest has been coated and sugar has melted. Remove it from the oven, and then let it cool to harden into a candied peel.Advertisement
Cooking method:
- 1Measure the ingredients. It would be much easier if the Cookeen and Stork have been taken out from the fridge 30 minutes beforehand.
2
Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Put in the Stork, Cookeen, butter, salt, and flour in a mixing bowl. Mix together using your hands until you have reached a crumbly mixture, such as fine breadcrumbs. An odd lump or two will not destroy the pastry. Work fast, so you can prevent the dough from becoming warm.
3
Add 3 tablespoons of water to the pastry mix, stir using a cold knife until the dough binds together, and then add more teaspoons of cold water if the mixture is too dry. Then cut it using a blunt knife.
4
Using your hand, form a ball out of the pastry mix. This will last for a minute. Add a tablespoon or more of water to the mixture if it won't form a ball easily. If the mixture is correct, most of the remains from the side of the bowl will attach easily to the ball. Wrap the pastry mix with a Saran wrap/cling film and put in the fridge for a minimum of 15 minutes, up to 30 minutes.
5
The dough may also be made using a food processor. Mix the butter, cold fat, flour, and salt in the bowl of the processor on a pulse setting.
The mixture creates coarse breadcrumbs, and the fat is evenly coated and distributed with flour. If you don't have a food processor, use your fingertips to quickly rub the fat into the flour. Add ice water slowly until the dough forms a ball. Be careful to not add the ice. Start with 2 tablespoons, and pulse many times in the food processor. A pastry will start to come together. Then add another tablespoon. The amount of water you need depends on the temperature and humidity. As the dough comes together, stop pulsing it. It should feel elastic. It should also not feel either dry or wet. Then wrap in a cloth, cling film or Saran wrap, and chill it for 15-30 minutes. This is an important step, because this makes the flour strong yet elastic in nature. It allows you to roll much more delicate and thinner pastry without breaking.
Assembling the pies:
- 1Unwrap the pastry and spread flour on the working area, then get the pastry mix from the fridge and flatten it slightly into 0.5 cm (¼ inch) thickness using your hands.
- 2Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.
- 3Using a rolling pin, flatten the pastry to approximately 0.1 inch (1/4 cm) thickness. Keep turning the pastry after every few rolls to stop it from sticking to the work surface.
- 4Use the pastry cutter, an upturned cup, or a cookie cutter to cut pastry circles that are bigger than the holes in the baking pan. Press every pastry circle into a hole in the baking tray.
- 5For the jam filling, put in the strawberries, vanilla pod, golden caster sugar, orange liqueur, and rosewater into a pan and simmer it. Simmer for five to eight minutes, or until the strawberries start to break down. Let it cool slightly.
- 6Once the strawberry filling mixture has slightly cooled, fill every pastry with an equal amount (about a heaping teaspoon) into its center. Be careful to not overfill, as the jam may spill out and burn when heated.
- 7Repeat until all the pastry has been used up. You may squish the pastry trimmings back together and re-roll several times. The pastry circles must be rested before they are cooked. Cut strips from the remains of pastry and lay them on top of the tarts.
- 8Put the tarts in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry cases are golden brown at 350 degrees F/180 degrees C. Get the tarts from the oven and set aside on a wire rack to let them cool completely. Do not eat while the tart is hot, as it may burn your mouth because the jam takes a long time to cool.
- 9To serve, put one to two strawberry jam tarts into the center of every serving plate. Put a teaspoonful of clotted cream on top of every tart and garnish with raw strawberries. Garnish over the set aside candied peel.
Other technique:
- 1Zest is the outer rind of a citrus fruit. It contains essential oils.
- 2Remove the zest using a grater, potato peeler, or zester. The amount you put will depend on how fine or thick you want the zest to be.
- 3When you remove the zest with a vegetable or potato peeler, slice it into thin, long strips using a sharp knife afterwards.
If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
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