This super simple jam tart recipe only uses 3 ingredients and provides plenty of opportunities for maths learning and development as well as a tasty end result.
Ingredients needed:
- 8oz Plain Flour
- 4oz Butter
- Your choice of jam or lemon curd
To make jam tarts I use the ratio half fat to flour allowing you to easily increase of decrease the recipe as needed. I generally use 8oz of flour to 4oz of butter. This is a great learning opportunity for older children, challenging them to half the amount of flour to find the amount of butter needed.
Begin by weighing out 8oz of flour and 4oz of butter using scales. This is a fantastic opportunity to look at the numbers on the scales, this recipe is in ounces so that the numbers are not to big and also recognisable for little ones. Challenge the children to add or take out the ingredients to get to the right number, supporting fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and dexterity as they use a spoon to transport the ingredients between containers as well as promoting knowledge of the number order.
Mix the flour and butter in an electric mixer until it transforms into a bread crumb consistency. Encourage the children to observe this change and use their senses to touch the mixture. Add a small amount of water at a time as the mixture is being mixed and watch as the mixture magically clumps together into a ball, igniting discussion of the change in to shortcrust pastry.
Take the pastry mixture and roll it out on a floured work surface. Allow the children to explore the pastry using their senses and talk about the different textures. Ask the children to chose 2 or 3 cutters of their choices and talk about the shapes they have chosen, such as how many edges or corners they have and if they can spot the shape any where else in the kitchen. For example a circle can be seen on the buttons on the electric mixer.
Use the cutters to cut shapes out of the pastry and challenge the child to lay them out on a greased tray in a repeating pattern. Then place half a tea spoon of jam in the centre of each pastry shape. To extend the children's learning further use a red strawberry jam and a yellow lemon curd to create an alternating colour sequence. Supporting the children's knowledge of patterns, sequences and colour recognition. Maybe get the children to taste the jam and lemon curd and talk about which fruits made them.
Finally, ask the children to count how many jam tarts they have made over all. Then an adult must put them into the oven on gas 6 or 200C for around 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Leave to cool slightly before eating or enjoy them warm with custard or ice-cream.
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