When I was a child, it was a real treat when my mother made us jam tarts! It didn't happen very often, to say the least.
I don't know why. They are not really very hard to make. She tended to only make them if she had leftover pastry . . . and not always even then.
And usually any leftover pastry went to make Petes de Soeur (um . . . Nun's Farts) or weiner rolls. Weiner rolls were much more popular with my dad so they got made the most often.
My mother would roll the scraps out thinly, spread them with mustard and wrap them around hotdogs before baking.
To be honest, we all loved them. So nobody was complaining. Not at all.
They were like the ultimate hotdog. I have tried them with fancy mustards through the years, but really . . . old fashioned French's American mustard is the best.
I found myself having quite a few small pots of Bonne Maman jam that needed using up.
I had gotten them for Christmas, and so today I decided to use them to make us some jam tarts. I didn't make really large ones. Just tiny bite sized ones.
I cut them out using the 2 inch flower cutter from my old Tupperware cookie cutter set. (I think I have had that for about 40 years or so!)
I used my brioche bun tins to bake them in. They worked wonderfully.
My jams were Plum, Apricot, Cherry, and Strawberry. Four tiny pots did all 30 tarts. Believe it or not.
The thing you want to remember about jam and baking is this . . . hot jam expands!
You don't need an awful lot in each tart. About 1/2 tsp in each of my small tarts was perfectly ample.
I have learned the hard way through the years that hot jam on hot tins is no fun to clean up afterwards . . . and the tarts end up sticking to your pan.
Better to have less jam and to be able to remove them without them breaking up.
These were lovely and to be honest, because they were so tiny, you didn't feel really guilty scarfing down two or three of them . . .
Yes, I am that person . . .
Have I ever told you how much I love pastry?
And jam? Well I love both of those things immensely!
So I think you can tell that I really REALLY loved these!
Easy Jam Tarts
Yield: 30 small tarts
This is one of Todd's favourite treats. Crisp buttery pastry filled with dabs of sweet jam. You can do a rainbow of tarts if you have a few different types. Do NOT overfill the tarts. A little dab will do you!
Ingredients:
For the pastry:
- 140g all purpose flour (1 cup)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 TBS butter
- 2 1/2 TBS lard
- 3 to 4 tablespoons of ice water
You will also need:
- jam to fill them (I used apricot, cherry, plum and strawberry)
Instructions:
- First make the pastry. Mix flour with salt, and cut in butter and lard, until you have pieces of fat in the flour about the size of peas. Add ice water, one TBS at a time, tossing it in with a fork until pastry comes together. Form in to a ball, flatten, wrap in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for about half an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Have ready some tart tins. I sprayed mine with some canola cooking spray to keep anything from sticking. As I was using individual tins, I placed them onto a baking sheet.
- Roll your pastry out, using a floured rolling pin, and on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Using a 2 inch cutter (I used a flower shaped one) stamp our rounds and use them to line your tart tins. Gather up any scraps and repeat until all of your pastry is used.
- Fill each tart with about 1/2 tsp of jam. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 to 12 minutes, until crisp, golden and the jam is bubbling. Let cool in the tins for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy with a hot cuppa. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.
I cooked us a fantastic roast chicken recipe today, so you might want to get yourself in a roasting chicken this weekend. I promise you won't be sorry.
It was the most delicious chicken we have eaten in a while! (And we eat chicken a lot!) Oh, and get a couple lemons and some fresh thyme also. Just a heads up!
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I found myself with rather a large bowl of apples that I wanted to use. There was a mix of varieties. Todd probably would have wanted me to make a crumble or a pie, but I found myself wanting to make applesauce.
I had some porkchops I had thawed out and applesauce is something we love to have with pork. We also love to eat applesauce in a bowl, just as a dessert.
My mother used to cook herself up a large saucepan of applesauce every now and then and she would enjoy it for days. Having spent a great deal of my growing up years in a prime apple growing area of Canada, I come by my love of apples quite naturally!
I wanted to try something a little bit different this time however.
I just didn't want to simmer apples . . . I decided to roast them in the oven and created an oven roasted applesauce, which if I may brag for a few minutes turned out to be stupendous!
I had a mix of apples . . . some were sweet eating apples and some were Granny Smiths. I peeled them all and sliced them.
I tossed them in a bowl together with a pinch of salt, some sugar and ground cinnamon, also adding a touch of freshly grated nutmeg.
Nutmeg adds such a lovely flavour to apples. You can leave the salt out, but just a pinch does make a difference.
I dotted them with butter and then roasted them in a buttered baking dish, tightly covered.
It took about 45 minutes. I mashed them with a fork because I like my applesauce to have a bit of texture.
For my chops, I brined them first and then seasoned them, clipped the fatty edge and browned them in my cast iron skillet on both sides, ready to pop into the oven alongside of the apples.
They were quite thick (about 1 1/2 inches) and they were cooked beautifully in the same amount of time it took to cook the apples.
I am not sure why pork and apples go so well together.
Interestingly enough good pork producers will fatten their pigs up on apples prior to slaughtering them. They say it makes the meat sweeter.
Another interesting fact is that the seasons of pork and apples coincide with each other, so . . . that could be a part of why we think they go so well together.
To brine my chops, I soak them for about an hour in a mix of cold water with several TBS each of fine sea salt and sugar.
Rinse well, pat dry. Season (light on the salt) and then cook as per your requirement.
Brined chops are NEVER dry. Trust me on this. It's a simple thing and makes a huge difference.
Oven Roasted Applesauce
Yield: Makes about
2 cups
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 pounds apples, peeled and sliced (I used a mix of tart and sweet)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 50g caster sugar (1/4 cup)
- pinch of salt
- butter to dot on top, about 2 TBS (optional)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a deep baking dish large enough to hold the apples.
- Toss the sliced apples together in a bowl with the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Pour them into the prepared baking dish and dot with butter if using. Cover tightly with foil.
- Roast in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, stirring them halfway through the cook time, until they are soft and just beginning to caramelise. Remove from the oven and mash well with a fork. Taste and adjust sweetness with some extra sugar if need be. We prefer ours a bit on the tart side, and of course a lot depends on the sweetness of the apples you use.
- Spoon into a serving bowl and serve warm with pork, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you are enjoying this as a dessert!
notes:
If you are planning on refrigerating this don't add the butter.
In any case if you are wanting to make your own applesauce, why not try roasting it the next time? It was really delicious. I think I may have spoilt myself for any other kind.
I think perhaps the longer you roast it the more condensed it might become, and you just may end up with apple butter, but I could be wrong. That's an experiment for another day!
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