jam tartaroons

… we live in a funny old world us cooks don’t we… so desperate are we for originality in our world of baking traditions that go back centuries that we’ve taken it upon ourselves, like some kind of crazed Doctor Frankenstein to stitch together the classics… not happy with simply eating a donut or a croissant Dominique Ansel created the cronut… and now we have starbucks and poor Bea Vo slugging it out over the Duffin, although I do have to say I love the Gregg’s version which they’ve aptly named the Muffnut… oh and let us not forget the humble cake-pop which seems to be some grandma of all cake hybrids… there are many others i’m sure and being a massive fan of both food and all things etymological i’ve decided to jump on the band wagon…

jam tartaroons
if i’m honest I kind of stumbled on to these by pure accident and they’re really just a jam tart with a egg white and ground almond topping made up from left-overs of my recent foray into mince-pie making… but nonetheless they were stupidly easy to make which is great for the oncoming festive period, tasted rather sublime and lasted about five seconds… ladies and gentlemen, I give you the jam tartaroon…

for the coconut pastry see here
any jam of your choice
2 egg whites
75g ground almonds or desiccated coconut
2 tablespoons sugar
a sprinkling of edible glitter

pre-heat your oven to 160C
make double the amount of pastry you would normally need, it’s always great to have a yummy sweet shortcrust pastry in the fridge during christmas, roll it out and cut out to line a mini tart tray

in a large clean bowl, whisk up the egg whites until they are stiff, then add the sugar, the ground almonds and a tablespoon of jam and whisk again until smooth and silky

place a teaspoon of jam into the bottom of each tart and top each one with a teaspoon or two of the egg white mix

bake for 15 mins or until just beginning to brown, then let them cool before serving…

it being Christmas… or xmas as some naughty monkey’s like to call it… and these are undoubtably a yummy xmas treat i’ve decided to enter these into this months brilliant AlphaBakes challenge which has the unfortunate letter X to contend with… i’m sure the hosts Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes will allow me this frivolity… i’ve entered far more tenuous entries before this…

eat and of course, enjoy!