Recipee for the Queen’s Jubilee: Jamie’s Jam Tarts

3 June 2012 / No Comments

Jam tarts. You can be 5 or 95, I think they must inspire the same thing for us all: the simplicity of youth and simple, coloured, happy food.

This recipee is one of Jamie Oliver’s that I have sometimes personalise with french fillings: Chestnut purée, Mirabelle Jam, Melted Dark Nestlé chocolate or even Milka chocolate spread.

Here, in honour of the Jubilee and my English heritage, today I am keeping in British. Enjoy with a cup of mily tea and a couple of hours in the garden reading Dickens/Kinsella/Ballard, according to your mood.

Ingredients for the sweet pastry

- 250g flour
- 250g icing sugar
- 125g softened unsalted butter

- 1 large egg
- Grated zest of 1 orange or lemon
- A cloud of milk

Ingredients for fillings

- Your favourite jams or curds

- For the pastry, put the flour, sugar and butter in bowl and with a pinch of salt until you get to a mixture that looks like breadcrumbs. Add the egg and the zest from your orange or lemon and mix again whilst adding a little milk to bring everything together. Wrap the dough in transparent film and put it into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Roll out the pastry so it’s 5mm thick. Use a few 12-hole jam-tart trays or muffin trays. Cut out rounds of pastry and gently push them into the holes so they come up the sides. Any leftover pastry can be gently pushed back into a ball and rolled out to make a few more tarts!

Then put 1 heaped teaspoon of filling into each jam tart, you can use as many different varieties of fillings as you wish. Variety makes it look pretty when served.
Then bake for 12–15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling is thick and bubbling.

Remove from the oven, leave in the tray to firm slightly, then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Serve on a pretty kitchen towel, an old pretty porcelain plate, a wooden tray or even a metal/silver serving dish! Accompany with a ball of vanilla ice cream, if needed xxxxx