This is probably my Mums favourite recipe. She is always baking these little tarts and bringing them over for the kids school lunches. They are great for this as they travel really well, and are a nice small treat for them in the middle of the day.

This is also a great recipe for using up all those odds and ends of Jams and Curds in the bottom of Jars, after being used in other bakes. We sometimes call them Bakewell Surprises, as you never know what flavour they are going to be till you bite into them.

As much as I love these little tarts, they are a slightly more tricky recipe as you have to make both pastry and sponge, so can be time consuming. However, they freeze excellently, so you can make a great big batch all at once. Usually we make 48 in one go and freeze for use throughout the month. I’ve made this recipe for just over 12 though, so you can give it a go, then just double it up to however many you want to make.

 

Ingredients:

 

For the pastry:

8oz Self Raising Flour

2oz hard butter substitute (i.e. Stork)

2oz White vegetable fat or lard (i.e. Trek)

2 tbsp cold water

For the filling:

8oz (225g) Jam of your choice (or mix and match whatever you have open)

For the Sponge:

6oz soft butter substitute (i.e. vitalite or pure sunflower)

6oz caster sugar

3 eggs

3oz self raising flour

3oz of ground almonds

½ tsp of almond extract

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C

For the pastry:

Rub the fats and flour till it resembles bread crumbs

Mix in the water with a knife, then use your hands to work together

Roll out onto a floured surface making sure it is about as thick as a £1 coin. Then, cut into rounds. I like to use a scalloped edge, but plain edges work just as well. When picking your cutter size, make sure it is just bigger than the holes in your tray.

Place the rounds into a tart baking tray. (You can use cupcake trays if that is all you have, but be careful not to make them too deep.) If the pastry cracks a little when moving it, don’t worry. If you have any cracks or gaps use the excess pastry to cover over and push down to fill them in. Once baked you wont see any repairs, but Jam leakage would be a disaster.

There is no need to blind bake for this recipe so fill the bases with about ½ tsp of Jam, then leave to one side while you make the sponge topping.

 

 

For the sponge:

Cream the spread and sugar together until it is light and fluffy

Add the eggs one at a time and beat into the mix. If you find the mix starts to curdle a bit, just add a little bit of the pre-measured flour and beat till it comes together again.

Add the remaining flour and the ground almonds bit at a time, and mix till everything has come together.

Add 1 tsp of almond extract for flavour and mix through

Pour a spoonful of the mixture on top of the pastry and jam base so that the sponge mix sits just below the pastry line, leaving room for it to rise without spilling over. Make sure your sponge covers right to the edges, so the jam cannot leak out.

Put into the preheated oven and bake for about 20 mins, until the top is golden brown and a cake tester or knife put into the middle comes out clean.

Remove from the tray and cool, on a cooling rack

You can also add some decoration to these. Traditionally you would ice them with a glace icing, then pop a cherry on the top, but you can decorate however you like. I tend to like to leave them plain as I often put them in the kids packed lunch and I want them to travel well, without the icing making a mess.

If you enjoyed this recipe, you can also make it as a large tray bake to cut into slices. Just check out that recipe here.