Jam tarts

If you follow my posts and read the French ones, you know by now that I always keep a batch of shortcrust dough in the freezer ready to be used. It’s not a big deal to make it either, or to buy it, there are some good ready-made options out there, it’s just that I know it’s so easy to make that there is no need to buy it, which is why I still make it. Besides it comes a lot cheaper and I can customize it the way I want.

Since my husband is always after the pudding (classic question after each dinner: "what's for pudding?"), a concept that I have also adopted since I married a Brit. In Morocco, you just need a fruit for a dessert, a fruit salad or a flan in the best case scenario. We already eat too much bread in our meals; do you see us adding puddings? Not to mention the pastries for afternoon breaks…

Anyway, I got him to eat bread like a Moroccan and he got me to adopt the pudding, at least once a day!

These jam tarts are a version of the easy sweets you can make ahead. It works with any kind of thick jam, we happen to like the red berries and I happen to have a home-made blueberry jam with ½ vanilla pod. So I kind of cleaned both jars.

Ingredients

For 6 tarts, medium size

Prep: 10 min – baking: 20 min

Shortcrust dough

Filling (suggestions)

Preparation

In a lightly floured parchment paper, roll the shortcrust dough to 3 mm thickness.

Making the shortcrust dough

Mix the flour with sugar and salt. Rub with cold butter until you reach a crumbly consistency. Bring the dough together by adding the egg yolk liquefied with milk. DO NOT OVERWORK the dough so it does not become elastic. Flatten the dough, cling film it and put it in the fridge for 30 min approximately.

Making the tarts

Using any round-shaped cutter (a bowl is the best for me), cut circles that should be bigger than the bottom of the moulds to be used for the tarts, so you can cover the boards as well.

Gently press one disc into each mould, prick the dough and place a heaped teaspoon or enough jam to cover the base. Do not over-fill it, I suggest half-way is the best.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 min or until golden brown. Let cool completely before tasting or you may burn your mouth. Besides, it’s no good to eat hot buttery crust, you don’t get to enjoy it.

I have sprinkled coconuts on the blueberry jam tarts once they were cool, some of them had almond flakes on top as well.

I have also sprinkled almond flakes on the raspberry jam tarts for a bit of crunch, and decorated it with a fresh raspberry and some icing sugar.