Jam Tarts

These are a perenial tea time treat and so easy to make. They are ideal to make with left over pieces of most types of pastry.

Ingredients
1 quantity of shortcrust pastry, sweet shortcrust pastry, rich shortcrust pastry
few tablespoons jam

Method
1 Sprinkle a work surface and rolling pin with a little plain flour.
2 Place the ball of pastry dough onto the flour.
3 Lightly roll the pastry out making sure to turn it 90 degrees after each roll of the rolling pin.
4 Dip a 3" fluted cutter into flour, shake off the excess.
5 Stamp out as many rounds as you wish.
6 Line a patty tin with the pastry rounds.
7 Prick the bases with a fork.
8 Bake in the oven at 200 degrees centigrade/gas mark 6 for about 8 to 12 minutes.
9 Place the tins directly onto a wire cooling rack for a couple of minutes.
10 Transfer the tart cases directly onto the wire cooling rack.
11 Place a few spoons of jam into a saucepan.
12 Place over a medium heat.
13 Allow the jam to just melt.
14 Spoon the jam carefully into the pastry cases.
15 Allow the jam tarts to cool before eating.

Serve either on their own, or with ice cream, freshly whipped cream, creme fraiche or custard.

Simple Lemon Biscuits

These are an ideal biscuit to make when learning to cook, they are quick and easy to make and wonderful to eat.

Ingredients
6oz/175g plain flour
4oz/110g diced butter at room temperature
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2oz/55g caster sugar

Method
1 Place a sieve over a large mixing bowl.
2 Spoon in the flour.
3 Shake the flour into the mixing bowl.
4 Add the butter.
5 Using the fingertips only, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
6 Add the lemon zest and the caster sugar.
7 Continue to form the mixture into a stiff dough.
8 Sprinkle the work surface and rolling pin with plain flour.
9 Roll the dough out to thickness of a biscuit.
10 Dip a cookie cutter into the plain flour, shake off the excess.
11 Stamp out as many rounds as you can.
12 Re-roll the dough as necessary.
13 Place the rounds of dough onto a baking tray.
14 Prick with a fork.
15 Bake at 180 degrees centigrade/gas mark 4 for about 5 to 8 minutes or until a pale golden brown.
16 Place the baking tray onto a wire rack for 5 minutes.
17 Using a pallette knife transfer the biscuits off the baking tray directly onto the wire cooling rack.
18 Leave to cool completely.

Store in the biscuit tin or an airtight container.

Oil Pastry

This is an unusual pastry, it is great for those who have to be careful of the amount of animal fats we eat. It can be used instead of short crust pastry.

There is a downside, it does not keep well so it has to be used as soon as possible after making and it does not freeze well raw. If it is kept for 24 hours in the fridge the oil seeps out and the pastry is rendered useless!

Vegetable oil is more suitable for savoury dishes. Groundnut oil suits spicier dishes. Olive oil is superb with cheese dishes (try extra virgin olive oil for an ever more wonderful pastry). For sweet dishes grapeseed is much better.

Ingredients
40ml vegetable oil
140g plain flour
pinch salt
cold water

Method
1 Place a sieve over a large mixing bowl.
2 Spoon in the flour and salt.
3 Shake the sieve to allow the flour to be sifted into the mixing bowl.
4 Make a well.
5 Pour the oil into a measuring jug.
6 Add 1 tablepsoon of cold water to the oil.
7 Whisk to mix the oil and water into an emulsion.
8 Gradually add the emulsion to the flour and salt, stop when you have a firm dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll out large enough to cover the base of a 20cm pie dish.