Jam Tarts

These are so so so easy to make, yet so satisfying! I think they were probably the first thing I ever made, back when I was about five with my Mum and they still remind of that now.

I made a sweet pie yesterday (which I will of course be covering in a post, but I haven't eaten it yet and so it will have to wait for another day). With the pastry I had leftover after lining the flan tin I made some jam tarts.

You can use ready-made shortcrust pastry, but seeing as I'd already made some for the pie I just used the cut offs. The pastry recipe I used was:

Ingredients
200g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
120g butter
1 large free range egg yolk
1 or 2 tbsp icy water

Method
Sift the flour, salt and sugar in to a mixing bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until it resembles crumbs.
Using a round-bladed knife, work in the egg yolk and icy water, one spoonful at a time, to bring the mixture together to make a ball of dough. Don't be tempted to put too much water in - keep mixing and it will come together but if it really is too dry add another spoonful.
Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge.
Once your pastry has cooled in the fridge for around 20 minutes, roll it out to approximately 3mm - this doesn't have to be exact!
Using a cutter about 6cm bigger than the hole in your tin, cut out circles and pop this into a muffin tin. Any bits that don't fit in to a circle can be moulded together and rolled again to make more.
Put a heaped teaspoon of your favourite jam in each case (for these ones I made some lemon curd, some lemon & lime jam, some ginger jam and some strawberry jam).
Place in a preheated oven at about 180 for approx 12-15 minutes, until the pastry is cooked and set.

Do let them cool on a wire rack before eating - the sugar in the jam means it gets very hot.

Enjoy!xx