Baking with Bob - jam and fruit tarts

Decided I need to start teaching Bob savoury things as well as yummy treats and puddings, so I found/adapted recipes for pastries that we could try making.


As anything new I like to try it out before the kids turn up so they are not too disappointed. So I made some pastry, now my guinea pigs....sorry lovely colleagues... at work need to test these out as then I can get other opinions for my blog that will allow you, Mr Joe Public to decide if you want to try out my recipe for yourself. So bearing this in  mind I decided to make sweet pastries for the girls to try before we go on to making savoury for Bob.

I made two different types of pastry, carrot and sweet potato, these both work well in carrot cake or sweet potato pie so I thought they were worth a try.

rolling between 2 sheets clingfilm

Carrot Pastry

This is adapted from a recipe I found on the Pure website. their method of making says to liquidise carrot and egg together but they dont have egg listed in their ingredients, I did email and say to them and they are going to correct it. I made double the quantity as it should  freeze and keep, but the kids and I  will use it up on Monday, should be fine in the fridge till then.

Ingredients

100g Pure spread 100g rice flour 125g potato flour 75g carrot, grated ½ tsp salt

Method

1. Set aside 1 tbsp of the beaten egg for use as a pastry glaze, liquidize the remainder with the carrot. Sieve the flours and salt into a bowl, rub in the Pure spread to form breadcrumbs. Add the carrot puree to the flours, mix to form a dough. 2. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll out between 2 pieces of floured cling film. 3. Bake all pastry in a hot oven 220°C/Gas Mark 7.

cutting out

I used the same ingredients as them but used egg replacer instead of an egg.

I then found one for using sweet potato that Im sure also used icing sugar and thought I had book marked it but no luck cant find it again, so I sort of cobbled this together from various others and hoped for the best.

carrot pastry ready to go

carrot pastry cooked

Sweet potato pastry

350 g flour, I used 1/3 brown rice. 1/3 potato, and 1/3 tapioca flour.I went for 3 light flours hoping for a light result.
150g dairy free spread (vitalite in my case)
150g cooked, mashed and cooled sweet potatoes
75g icing sugar (lighter than normal sugar)
1 banana mashed (to act as an egg)

I am hoping if these recipes work that by omitting the sugar and adding seasoning/herbs next time we can try savoury.

left both pastries in the fridge overnight.

I rolled out the pastry between 2 layers of cling film dusted with brown rice flour,to save it sticking to the board or the rolling pin. I then cut out circles and put them into tins. I found the pastry quite delicate, and hard to handle in small sizes like I was using for the samples for work but was ok in the larger sizes that I put into a normal bun tin.

The small ones I just baked empty so that I could add fruit and quick jel, and a dozen of the large ones I made for us had fruit and quick gel in and the other dozen (6 of each) were made into jam tarts.

sweet potato pastry ready to cook

jam tarts with lids

My verdict - think the pastry could have done with a minute less in the oven, they were a wee bit crisper than normal pastry, will maybe try a slightly higher fat content next time.  They were pleasant enough and the fruit and jelly softened them a wee bit enough and that they were certainly very edible.

They also looked very pretty, the small ones would be great at a buffet or a party, you might even want to put a squirt of cream on top ( the kind that comes in an aerosol), and again they are something normal looking that other people would eat without feeling like they were missing out.

finished tarts