Jam Tarts

Jam Tarts with a homemade shortcrust pastry and a selection of homemade jams, delightfully rich and indulgent, and so delicious! They are very easy to make with a handful of ingredients, and they make some excellent sweet bites for any celebration.

These little beauties are a classic British sweet treat, and are perfect for serving at any parties, picnics or, why not, whenever you feel peckish and need a sweet treat to go with your cup of tea.

Once the shortcrust pastry is ready, you fill the pastry discs with your favourite jam and bake. It's that simple! I used a selection of strawberry and rhubarb jam, blueberry jam and blackberry jam, but any other jam would work too.

The texture of the pastry reminds me of shortbread, with its richness and crumbly touch, it really is way better than any ready-made shortcrust pastry. You could, if you wish, use store-bought puff pastry too, but that would give us some treats more similar to pasteis the nata.

Jump to:

• Ingredients used
• Step-by-step photos and instructions
• Expert tips
• Other jam treats
• Jam Tarts

Ingredients used

• plain flour - makes the best shortcrust pastry
• cornflour - corn starch in the US, makes the pastry crumbly and delicious
• sugar - I used caster sugar, granulated also ok
• egg yolk - to bind the pastry
• cold water - I used 2 tablespoons to bring the pastry together
• butter - I prefer salted butter, it adds more flavour to the pastry

• a selection of blueberry, strawberry and rhubarb and blackberry jam for the tarts

Step-by-step photos and instructions

• start by making the sweet shortcrust: in a mixing bowl, sift in the flour, add the cold butter cut into cubes, and use your fingertips to rub the butter and flour together to get a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs - alternatively, you, can add them to a food processor to get the same result
• add the cornflour and sugar, and mix again (see photo )
• in go the egg yolk and water, knead everything well into an elastic dough that does not stick to the hand

• cover the dough with clingfilm, and refrigerate for 30 minutes
• use a rolling pin to roll the dough, and use an 8 cm cookie cutter to cut out dough rounds
• place the discs into the holes of a tart tin or muffin tin
• add one teaspoon of jam to each tart, making sure not to overfill
• bake in the preheated oven at 190 degrees Celsius (375 Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden
• remove the tarts from the oven, and leave them to cool down slightly in the tray before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool down completely

Expert tips

These little tarts are pretty much failproof, and much easier to make them than you'd think. There are a few things to keep in mind though - shortcrust pastry is rich and buttery, and can shrink badly if it's not cooled before getting it in the oven.

Make sure you refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before cutting out the dough discs, otherwise you will end you with tiny flat tarts.

Do not overfill the tarts with jam, otherwise it will bubble up in the oven and spill over, just a teaspoon would do - remember the pastry does shrink a bit anyway, so you'd end up with more jam than pastry.

Please keep in mind that the jam is very hot when the tarts come out of the oven, and it can really burn your skin. You can powder them with icing sugar / powdered sugar if you wish once they cool down, it's totally optional.

Other jam treats

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