Playing with Strawberry Jam
I didn't want to title this post just "Strawberry Jam" because someone might assume I was posting about MAKING strawberry jam ... and that's not happening. Ever.
When buying jam, raspberry and apricot are neck and neck for first choice for me. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Freshco and saw that the Smucker's brand was on sale. I decided to switch things up a bit and picked up a jar of strawberry jam instead. It was a nice treat and besides spreading it on my toasted sourdough bread and using it to fill crepes, I used it in the desserts below.
Strawberry Pop-Tarts - I used my friend Ann's pie crust recipe for the tarts and read a number of blogs for assembly and baking instructions. The 'recipe' posted below is a combination of the best elements gleaned from my readings.
The results were very tasty, though I had some leftover pastry so I know I could have rolled the pastry a bit thinner and made three pop-tarts, not just two, with the pastry I had.
Glazed pop-tarts - I wasn't sure how much icing I wanted to use so I played
Strawberry Pop-Tarts - makes 3
pie crust pastry, enough to make one 9 inch pie base
3-4 tbsp strawberry jam
1 egg white, beaten with a bit of water (use the egg yolk for the Jammie Dodgers recipe below)
1/4 cup icing sugar
enough milk to make a glaze
red or pink food colouring, if desired
Cut out a 3 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inch piece of stiff cardboard to use as a template.
Roll out the pie crust pastry into an 11 by 12 inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut SIX rectangles out of the pastry using the template above.
Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
Line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.
Place THREE of the pastry rectangles cut above onto the baking sheet. Brush a 1/2 inch strip of beaten egg white around all four edges of each rectangle. Place a heaping tablespoon of jam in the middle of the pastry rectangles and gently spread out, to where the egg white strip begins, with a small off-set spatula or the back of a small teaspoon. Place the tops onto each pastry and press down gently on the edges to seal. Use the tines of a fork to press down and seal the edges fully. With the prongs of the fork or a sharp skewer or toothpick, make vent holes across the top of the pastry.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops of the pastries are golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes and then use a spatula to transfer each pastry to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Make a glaze for the pastry tops by adding milk, a teaspoon at a time, to the icing sugar in a small bowl. You may add a drop or two of food colouring to the icing sugar before adding the milk.
Jammie Dodgers -This is the third most popular biscuit in the UK, according to a survey taken last December. By the way, I've made the number one pick, chocolate digestive biscuits and it IS a winner. The recipe I included below is a rewritten version of the one I used and includes vanilla extract, which that one did not. I had to extend the baking time to accommodate my oven's idiosyncrasies.
PS: I'm not pointing fingers but the Jammie Dodgers look very similar to Linzer cookies, an Austrian rolled Christmas cookie.
Jammie Dodgers - makes about a dozen 3 inch/8 cm cookies
250 g plain/ all purpose flour*
200 g salted butter**
100 g icing sugar
1 egg yolk, from the pop-tarts recipe above
1 tsp vanilla extract
strawberry jam, to fill the cookies
additional icing sugar, for dusting
* The pastry was so soft I couldn't pick it up without it ripping, even when I heavily dusted more flour on my work surface and over the pastry. I tried working more flour in ... still too soft. I even tried freezing the pastry for half an hour with minimal benefit. Still, I persisted, and managed to get almost a dozen Jammie Dodgers baked.
** I was short on butter so I used margarine. This may have contributed to the soft pastry above but further reading suggested that a short bread type pastry dough, like this one, should have 3 pts flour: 2 pts butter: 1 pt sugar. This means that I should have used 300 g of flour. So that's what I'll do next time.
Preheat the to 350 deg F/170 deg C and line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and icing sugar.
Add the butter (or margarine) to the bowl and, with a pastry blender, cut it in until your mixture resembles bread crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. With a fork, incorporate the dry mixture into the wet. Gather the pastry into a ball and wrap it with plastic food wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Turn the pastry out onto a floured surface and roll out to around 1/4 of an inch/6 mm thickness. Cut your biscuits out into 3 inch/8 cm circles and, from half the biscuits, cut out an additional shape from the middle.
Place your cookies onto the baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies are a light golden colour around the edges.
Once the cookies are cool enough to handle, dust the tops with a little icing sugar. Spread about a teaspoon of jam over the bases and sandwich the tops and bases together.
NOTE: For an even prettier presentation, using a tiny spoon, fill the cut out in the middle with a bit more jam so that it comes to the same level as the top cookie.
"Jammie Hearts" - the cutouts make bite sized cookies
When buying jam, raspberry and apricot are neck and neck for first choice for me. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Freshco and saw that the Smucker's brand was on sale. I decided to switch things up a bit and picked up a jar of strawberry jam instead. It was a nice treat and besides spreading it on my toasted sourdough bread and using it to fill crepes, I used it in the desserts below.
Strawberry Pop-Tarts - I used my friend Ann's pie crust recipe for the tarts and read a number of blogs for assembly and baking instructions. The 'recipe' posted below is a combination of the best elements gleaned from my readings.
The results were very tasty, though I had some leftover pastry so I know I could have rolled the pastry a bit thinner and made three pop-tarts, not just two, with the pastry I had.
Glazed pop-tarts - I wasn't sure how much icing I wanted to use so I played
Strawberry Pop-Tarts - makes 3
pie crust pastry, enough to make one 9 inch pie base
3-4 tbsp strawberry jam
1 egg white, beaten with a bit of water (use the egg yolk for the Jammie Dodgers recipe below)
1/4 cup icing sugar
enough milk to make a glaze
red or pink food colouring, if desired
Cut out a 3 1/2 inch by 5 1/2 inch piece of stiff cardboard to use as a template.
Roll out the pie crust pastry into an 11 by 12 inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut SIX rectangles out of the pastry using the template above.
Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
Line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.
Place THREE of the pastry rectangles cut above onto the baking sheet. Brush a 1/2 inch strip of beaten egg white around all four edges of each rectangle. Place a heaping tablespoon of jam in the middle of the pastry rectangles and gently spread out, to where the egg white strip begins, with a small off-set spatula or the back of a small teaspoon. Place the tops onto each pastry and press down gently on the edges to seal. Use the tines of a fork to press down and seal the edges fully. With the prongs of the fork or a sharp skewer or toothpick, make vent holes across the top of the pastry.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops of the pastries are golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes and then use a spatula to transfer each pastry to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Make a glaze for the pastry tops by adding milk, a teaspoon at a time, to the icing sugar in a small bowl. You may add a drop or two of food colouring to the icing sugar before adding the milk.
Jammie Dodgers -This is the third most popular biscuit in the UK, according to a survey taken last December. By the way, I've made the number one pick, chocolate digestive biscuits and it IS a winner. The recipe I included below is a rewritten version of the one I used and includes vanilla extract, which that one did not. I had to extend the baking time to accommodate my oven's idiosyncrasies.
PS: I'm not pointing fingers but the Jammie Dodgers look very similar to Linzer cookies, an Austrian rolled Christmas cookie.
Jammie Dodgers - makes about a dozen 3 inch/8 cm cookies
250 g plain/ all purpose flour*
200 g salted butter**
100 g icing sugar
1 egg yolk, from the pop-tarts recipe above
1 tsp vanilla extract
strawberry jam, to fill the cookies
additional icing sugar, for dusting
* The pastry was so soft I couldn't pick it up without it ripping, even when I heavily dusted more flour on my work surface and over the pastry. I tried working more flour in ... still too soft. I even tried freezing the pastry for half an hour with minimal benefit. Still, I persisted, and managed to get almost a dozen Jammie Dodgers baked.
** I was short on butter so I used margarine. This may have contributed to the soft pastry above but further reading suggested that a short bread type pastry dough, like this one, should have 3 pts flour: 2 pts butter: 1 pt sugar. This means that I should have used 300 g of flour. So that's what I'll do next time.
Preheat the to 350 deg F/170 deg C and line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and icing sugar.
Add the butter (or margarine) to the bowl and, with a pastry blender, cut it in until your mixture resembles bread crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. With a fork, incorporate the dry mixture into the wet. Gather the pastry into a ball and wrap it with plastic food wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Turn the pastry out onto a floured surface and roll out to around 1/4 of an inch/6 mm thickness. Cut your biscuits out into 3 inch/8 cm circles and, from half the biscuits, cut out an additional shape from the middle.
Place your cookies onto the baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies are a light golden colour around the edges.
Once the cookies are cool enough to handle, dust the tops with a little icing sugar. Spread about a teaspoon of jam over the bases and sandwich the tops and bases together.
NOTE: For an even prettier presentation, using a tiny spoon, fill the cut out in the middle with a bit more jam so that it comes to the same level as the top cookie.
"Jammie Hearts" - the cutouts make bite sized cookies