Home › The Principles of Cookery › Jam Tarts
Jam Tarts
Make some pastry, as directed for JAM PATTIES. Butter a dozen patty-pans, and line them with the pastry rolled out to a quarter of an inch in thickness. Put them into a quick oven, and when nearly baked take them out and put a little jam in the centre of each, then return them to the oven and finish baking. An ornament already baked should be placed upon each, or a little whipped cream. Time, a few minutes to bake. Probable cost, 1 1/2d. each. Sufficient for eight tarts.
A straightforward short-crust tartlet, with one instruction worth respecting: the jam goes in near the end, not at the start.
- Why the jam goes in lateJam added at the beginning boils over, scorches on the pan rim and welds the tart in place. Bake the empty shells until set and barely coloured, spoon in the jam, then return them for two or three minutes just to warm it through.
- "A quick oven"Conventionally glossed as a hot oven, roughly 425-450F (220-230C), though the book gives no figure. It says only "a few minutes to bake"; watch the shells rather than a clock, and give them only a brief return to the oven once the jam is in.
- Patty-pansShallow tartlet tins, about 2 to 2 1/2 inches across, or a 12-hole bun tin. The pastry rolled to a quarter inch is thick by modern habit; an eighth of an inch bakes crisper and still holds.
- Blind bakingCassell assumes the pastry sits in the tin unweighted, which works for small shallow shells if the pastry is well chilled. Prick the bases and rest them in the fridge before baking to limit the puffing.
- The yield discrepancyThe text calls for a dozen patty-pans but says "sufficient for eight tarts." The two numbers are simply inconsistent; work to the twelve pans the instruction actually gives.
- "An ornament already baked"A pastry cut-out -- a star, leaf or lattice strip -- baked separately on a flat tray so it stays pale and crisp, then set on the jam. Baking it apart is the point; laid on the wet jam from the start it would go soft.
- Cost and creamThe 1 1/2d. per tart is a late-Victorian retail estimate and means nothing now. The whipped cream should go on only once the tarts are fully cool.
- Jam choiceA stiff, well-set jam holds its shape; loose modern conserves and lower-sugar spreads will run over the rim in the oven. Reduce a slack jam briefly in a pan first.
This entry is barely a recipe at all -- it sends you back to Jam Patties for the dough and only tells you what differs. That cross-referencing habit is characteristic of the big late-nineteenth-century dictionaries of cookery, which were written for a cook expected to know how to make short crust already. Jam tarts themselves belong to the era of cheap sugar: British duties on sugar were finally abolished in 1874, and preserves that had been a careful stillroom luxury became a commercial pantry staple, sold by the jar. The instruction to crown each tart with a separately baked pastry ornament reflects the period's taste for finished, presentable small pastries on the tea table.