Jam Tarts Recipe - Quick and Fun to Make With Kids!

Last weekend I decided to make something with Isla and I didn't want to make cakes and I remembered how I loved it when I'd get to make jam tarts with my Nan when I was little. We would make jam ones and also lemon curd ones (I liked these the best!) and I remember not being able to wait that long to eat them after they came out of the oven, but you kind of have to with jam tarts or they take the skin off the roof of your mouth! It's also important to not let little fingers near the jam when the tarts come out of the oven as again it is terrifically hot!

So here's the recipe:

250g plain flour
125g softened butter
1 egg beaten - you might only need half of this, depends on how your pastry is coming together

Optional: you can add 20g of icing sugar to the ingredients to make the pastry sweet - although I found that the jam made things sweet enough and I stuck to savoury pastry 

Set oven to 200 degrees/ Gas mark 6

• Put the flour and butter (and icing sugar if you're using it) in the food processor and whizz for 10 seconds. Then add half the beaten egg. Whizz again and watch how the mix is coming together. At this point you may need to add a bit more egg. Then use your hands to bring the pastry together. (You can do all of this with your hands - food processor isn't crucial - you would rub the butter into the flour and then once a breadcrumb texture, gradually add egg in the same way and bring together)
• Flatten the pastry out on the surface to about 3mm and then use a cutter to cut out 12 rounds - my cutter was 6cm.
• Put the rounds into a shallow baking tin and put a teaspoon of jam into each one. We had some scraps of pastry left and we cut out some hearts and put these on the top of the jam to make the tarts a bit prettier!
• Bake for 8 - 12 minutes until the pastry is golden and the jam is all oozy and bubbling, remove to wire rack to cool

The tarts were delicious and there were enough to take over to Nanny's! Isla loved making these, she particularly likes the cutting out bit - and while she was doing the serious baking Noah had a small ball of pastry to play with too! Enjoy!

Tesco Real Food - How to make an Afternoon Tea

Last week I attended a Tesco Afternoon Tea Baking event at Food at 52, a cooking school in London. I love an afternoon tea and so I was looking forward to making some delicious cakes. I'm not a particularly skilled baker, I don't have a lot of time these days but I can appreciate a good cake and I would love to bake more.

I met up with a lot of other lovely bloggers (they were all of the foodie variety - so I did feel slightly deficient with my cookery skills!) who I know could whip up a Victoria Sponge with their eyes closed. I swooned at the gorgeous mint green Kitchen Aid we used - is it possible to fall in love with a kitchen appliance? I had a couple of glasses of delicious New Zealand sauvignon and finally after all the baking I scoffed what I thought was the most heavenly slice of Victoria Sponge AND a mini bakewell tart! Oh and as a reward for doing the bathing and bedtime routines for the kids I took home 3 different cakey items for the OH.

Me eyeing up the object of desire....

On the night we made: Victoria Sponge, Mini Bakewell Tarts, Salted Caramel shortbread, Black Forest Cupcakes, Fruit tarlets and scones. I decided to recreate the scones this weekend when it rained all day on Sunday. Isla always wants to help with cooking so I knew these would be nice and easy - much to her dismay though they didn't involve icing and sprinkles....

Perfect Scones - Serves 8

350g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
40g caster sugar
75g butter
175ml milk
1 egg beaten, for glazing

To serve: butter, jam, whipped or clotted cream, strawberries

* Preheat oven to 200c (180 fan)
* Mix flour, baking powder, caster sugar and a pinch of salt in a large bowl and then rub in the butter in your fingertips until it's like crumbs
* Add the milk a little at a time, bringing the mixture together until it makes a firm dough. Handle as little as possible but add a bit more milk if it needs
* Lightly flour the surface and put the dough out and shape it into a circle about 1.5cm thick (a finger and a half)
* Cut out the scones using a cutter, pressing firmly through the dough and twisting slightly as you pull it back out
* Put the scones on a non stick baking sheet and brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes until risen and golden
* Leave to cool for a few minutes and then unleash the jam and clotted cream and GET STUCK IN!!!

Isla helping to make 'perfect' scones. They were lush.

The Tesco Real Food Baking Challenge is running for six weeks until 21^stOctober. They are asking customers to upload their best baking recipe to be entered into a weekly prize draw and a grand prize draw, which includes a luxury stay and cooking class at Eckington Manor, a KitchenAid mixer, kitchen utensils, an Eric Lanlard Home Bake cookbook and Persil washing up liquid products.

some of the lovely prizes.....

For more information on the baking challenge, visit the competition page:

http://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/customer-recipes.html


I received a Tesco goodie bag and travel expenses for attending the event.

Baking Biscuits with Isla

We made this really simple recipe from Rachel Allen's book Rachel's Favourite Food.

6oz Plain Flour
4oz Butter
2oz caster sugar

Pre heat oven to 180Celcius

Rub the butter into the flour. Then add the sugar. Bring mixture together to make a dough. Roll it out to half centimetre thickness and then cut away! Cook for 6 - 10 minutes or until golden brown.

I love Rachel Allen and have all of her books. The food she makes is so simple and these biscuits took no time to make and Isla loved making them. I got some fab gingerbread men cutters and she cut them out and decorated them herself with red and blue icing, silver balls and sprinkles. I really want to continue cooking and baking with Isla as she seems to really enjoy it. The only thing that sometimes puts me off is the time it takes to clear up all the mess! Oh and she also has a tendency to want to eat mouthfuls of flour and butter, that isn't so great either!

Here's the end result (excuse the haziness of the photo - think I got butter on the lens!), I think she did a pretty good job and they were tasty!