The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summer day:

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts

And took them quite away!

Last week Duerr’s Jam Makers were kind enough to send me some of their special Valentine’s Jam, made with strawberries, champagne and (apparently) an aphrodisiac called horny goat’s weed. I also have some of their lovely Strawberry jam in the cupboard so I decided to make 2 types of jam tarts. My 2 year old daughter helped me with cutting out the pastry and since we made them this morning they’ve certainly been disappearing – although I’m not sure the Knave of Hearts is to blame 😉

Ingredients

200g Plain flour

100g Unsalted butter

50ml Whole milk

Strawberry jam (either aphrodisiac or normal)

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180c
• Place the flour and butter in a large bowl and rub together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
• You may not need all the milk. Gradually add the milk to the flour mix and use your fingers to work the mixture into a smooth ball. Depending on the amount of moisture in your flour you may need slightly less or more milk. Try not to let the pastry become sticky as the more flour you have to add to fix this, the tougher the pastry will become.
• Dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry as thinly as you can while still being able to work with it. If the pastry tries to stick to the rolling pin dust the top with a little flour.
• I used a tray designed to make 24 Vol au Vents, so used a medium sized round cutter for the bases of the tarts. If you are using a traditional mince pie tin you will need a large cutter. Grease the tray with butter before placing the tart bases in.
• Add a small teaspoon full of jam to each mini tart (more for traditional sized tarts) the important thing is to leave space at the top for the jam to expand when it heats up in the oven. The more the jam bubbles over the edges while cooking, the harder the tarts will be to remove from the tin.
• I cut out pastry hearts for the top of the tarts.
• Place the mini tarts in the 180c oven for 15 minutes or until they begin to brown. At a guess larger tarts would take about 25 minutes but keep a close eye on them from 20minutes and take them out as soon as they begin to brown.