Today I conquered my fear of the sensory overload that is the IMAX. A bad experience several years ago had stopped me returning, now I can’t wait for my next visit. If you haven’t yet seen Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, I urge you to go now. Take your kids, your mum, your granny, your white rabbit and your jabberwocky, don the 3D specs and suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours; Johnny Depp’s incandescent craziness is the ideal escapist antidote to everyday life.
Jewel-bright jam and crumbly, biscuity pastry make these the perfect little gems. Serve them as part of your Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Queen of Hearts Jam Tarts, adapted from Olive magazine
200g plain flour
100g butter, chilled and diced
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
grated rind of half an orange
jam of your choice (I used my favourites, raspberry and apricot)
Whizz the flour and butter together in a food processor until the mixture resembles very fine breadcrumbs. Add the caster sugar and mix. Add the egg yolk and the orange rind and pulse until the pastry comes together – you may find you need to add a splash of water. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 190ºC. Roll out the pastry until about 3mm thick and stamp out circles big enough to fit the holes of your tart tin (remember that they will shrink a little as they cook). Bake for 15 minutes, add small spoonfuls of jam to each pastry case – be careful not to overfill them or you’ll end up with a sticky mess that effectively glues pastry to tin – and bake for a further 5 minutes.
Makes 16 tarts. And if anybody doesn’t like them, off with his head! ♥
[Please resist the urge to eat them straight from the oven. Yes they are glossy and inviting, but they possess insidious power to BURN the inside of your mouth!!]
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi
Would you like to bring some of those delicious looking tarts over to our house?
No no no, not your house, please my house 🙂 Because they look yummy