Jam Tarts are traditionally made as open cups of pastry crust with a spoon of jam in the middle. I’ve made mine more like “apple turnovers” with the round crust folded over the top into a half-round, then the edges sealed with a fork pressing it flat.
My Mum would make pies. I’d “help”… At about the time I could see the table top, I was allowed to use the leftover bits of pie crust dough to make “Jammy tarts”. Mum would form it up into a ball, roll it out again, and I’d use some glass or other to cut new rounds (usually ever smaller as the dough got used up), spoon a bit of jam on them, fold in half, and press the edges together with a fork. Bake until lightly browned (about 10 to 12 minutes on high).
Yesterday I wanted something sweet. Nothing in the house. Plain Old Jam On White Bread (POJOWB?) not that interesting… And I remembered Jammy Tarts. One of those “memory floods over you” moments. I had to have a Jammy Tart, Damn It!
I decided to just use a basic pastry recipe as I’ve never made very good pie crust. In a large bowl I mixed 4 ounces of flour (by weight) with 2 ounces of “fat”, a sprinkle of salt, and about 4 tsp of cool water. Mix it all together until crumbly, add the water as needed to make a dough, let it rest about 10 minutes+ in the fridge. Then roll it out flat, cut your circles, about 1/3 a diameter blob of jelly in the middle, fold over, press the edges, bake about 12 minutes at about 400 F. Then LET THEM COOL A LONG TIME, like 1/2 hour long. The jam inside stays hot a long time.
In my case, I was very impatient. Some shortcuts were taken. I didn’t let the dough rest, so it was a bit more “crumbly” than desired. I got to patch up the side of one tart as the dough was torn a bit. I didn’t roll it out (as it was crumbly..) and instead formed each “circle” by hand, so they were a bit irregular. Then filled them while holding it and crimped the edges with my fingers. In the end, these were more like Chinese Bows or Japanese Pot Stickers in form and I set them on the non-crimp edge in the pan instead of laying flat. Hey, it worked ;-)
One other thing was I used one ounce of butter and one ounce of bacon grease. Using lard is preferred for many kinds of crust pastry, but most lard is hydrogenated. So I save bacon pan drippings. (Just pour it in a jar and set in the fridge after it cools to almost room temp). This makes a great crust for savory pies (meat pies and such). I wasn’t sure how it would work for sweet pies… It was OK. Added a bit of richness and an interesting flavor, but took away the “just sweet desert” aspect. A more complex flavor. Worth trying but most folks will likely want 100% butter. Still, 1/2 hour after they were out of the oven, they were all gone ;-)
For larger ones, made with a stronger dough, use a fork or knife to poke a couple of vent holes in the top (so steam won’t explode the pie). For these little ones and with a crumbly leaky seam, I didn’t bother and it was fine.
For pastry you are supposed to use unsalted butter then add salt per the recipe. I’ve often just used the common salted butter and not added any salt to the dough. It’s pretty good.
This particular trip down memory lane had me longing for more Jammy Tarts, and I’ve decided I’ll be making them more regularly. It had been about 1/2 a century since I made any. I think I’ll try cutting the fat in 1/2 so it’s more like a pie dough and less like a flakey pastry dough. These were very good and the crust was very flakey, but that also means they tended to send a shower of crumbs down my sleeve when I bit into them (cured by just stuffing the whole thing in my mouth ;-) But I’d like to make them bigger than pot stickers and with properly chilled / rolled dough. I also don’t need quite that many calories… OTOH I wasn’t hungry until well past the next meal time…
I also am now encouraged enough to try making a meat pie using the leftover “chicken slow cooker” stuff as filling. Using either saved chicken fat or bacon grease for the fat, and making a stronger dough with more mixing and chilling to develop more gluten strength. A stronger more savory dough with less fat in it (so a 1:4 fat:flour instead of 1:2).
Just as a reminder what the slow cooker meal is:
I cut up 4 pieces of chicken into chunks about an inch thick (so they cook evenly, I tend to use thighs where I cut them into 1/3ds long ways so the bone cooks faster. One onion as large dice. A couple of carrots, scraped and diced. About the same amount of celery chopped. (Mirepoix of a sort). Then I add one can of condensed cream of {mushroom or chicken} soup, about an ounce of water, and fill the slow cooker to the top with chunks of potatoes – usually about 2 medium or one very large – cut into about 1 inch on a side chunks). Salt and pepper as you like it. Sometimes I’ll add any left over peas or green beans in the fridge. This makes a nice ‘stew’ that can be made thinner with a bit more starting water and more “pie filling like” with less. Other meats can also be used.
So with that, and some dough, I ought to be able to make my own meat pies… Which would make for an interesting meal. A plate of little “meaty tarts” followed by a serving of “jammy tarts”.
FWIW, the smallest jammy tart I ever made was about the size of a fingernail. I just didn’t want to waste that scrap of dough and my Mum was tolerant of the experiment. It was cooked for just a minute or two, and while a bit dry, was still very good. I did get an intuitive grasp of the notion that the filling increased as the cube of the linear dimension and that the crust was more in line with the square; in that I figured out pretty quickly that big ones were way too jammy and the little ones wanted more jam than would fit. The ideal size seems to be about the size of a circle cut with a large coffee cup or drinking glass. What we used as cutters then, since the extravagance of buying a device just to cut circles was not, erm, “in the budget”… Call it about 2 1/2 to 3 inches.
So there you have it. If you have flour, some butter or left over bacon grease, a jar of jam and a salt shaker, you are all set to make a fun sweet treat. You don’t need the fancy fluted Jam Tart Cutters or cups. You don’t need a muffin tin (I used an old pie tin saved from a store bought pie). I didn’t even use a rolling pin. (It is possible to use a sturdy drinking glass as an ersatz roller, but a bit tricky as it rolls in arcs. ;-) The Jammy tarts don’t mind if they are a bit misshapen, have a leak or two, are crumbly or a bit tough, taste a bit of bacon, or all butter, are too big or as small as a nickle. They just work.
I would recommend making twice as big a batch as you expect to eat. Otherwise an hour later you want more and they are all gone ;-)
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