Welcome to the Food for All series.
I'm Pippa, author of the Intolerant Gourmet, a cookbook full of gluten, dairy, egg, soy,
and yeast free recipes, and packed full of delicious food.
In this episode, I'm going to show you how to make jam tarts and the elusive gluten free
shortcrust pastry.
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So, first, I'm going to show you how to make really good gluten free and dairy free shortcrust
pastry.
People who go gluten free often find it really difficult to make pastry, and that's because
without the gluten in the flour, there's nothing for the pastry to bind properly with and you'll
find that it's crumbly or too hard.
This pastry, I promise, is foolproof, and really easy to make.
So, into the base of the food processor we put gluten free plain flower.
This is a mix of rice, cassava, and potato flour that you can buy premixed.
So, we put that in, and then to that, we add a little thing call xanthan gum.
Now, xanthan gum is a corn derivative, and what is does is it helps everything bind together.
It gives gluten free products their crumb and it helps gluten free pastry roll.
So, it's really pretty important.
This is going to be a sweet shortcrust pastry.
We put two tablespoons of caster sugar.
And then in this bowl, I have a combination of dairy free margarine.
I'm using a sunflower margarine because I think it's the best one.
You want to try and get non hydrogenated and trans fat free, which is pretty easy these
days, so keep an eye out for it.
And I'm also putting in something called Trex, which is just vegetable shortening, and it's
the combination of these two things that will give that really nice quality short texture
to the pastry, and it's really important.
So, we just cut it in, even though we're going to pulse it.
You don't want to put it in in big blobs.
You want to put it in bit by bit.
And if you were doing this by hand, you'd whisk together the flour and the xanthan gum
and the sugar in a large mixing bowl, and then you'd cut in the fats like I'm doing
now, and then you'd use a pallet knife to cut the fats into the flour until you had
a bread crumb like consistency.
For a full list of ingredients, just check the description box.
I'm going to put the lid on this and I'm going to pulse it until you have a fine, bread crumb-like
consistency.
So you'll see that A, it's turned quite golden, which is the sunflower margarine, but also
that you have a fine bread crumb and it's just starting to pull together, which is pretty
important.
There's a bit of extra fat there, so we'll just give it another quick pulse to make sure
that everything's combined.
And then all we do is we've got ice cold water.
This is the one thing that is really similar to normal shortcrust pastry making, in that
you want to make sure that your fats and that the water are nice and cold.
So, I'm going to start by putting two tablespoons.
Okay, so I'm going to pulse it.
All right.
So, our dough has started to pull together.
We can scoop it out with our hands and then we'll place it into this mixing bowl.
So, I've transferred the gluten-free pastry into a bowl, and literally, you just want
knead it very lightly.
Knead is probably too strong a word.
You just want to move it around and use your hands to shape it until you feel that it's
got some elasticity, and this is what the xanthan gum does.
So, the more you use your hands on it, the more the xanthan gum relaxes.
So, I've shaped it into a ball, I've got two layers of cling film.
Because shortcrust pastry and dairy free pastry has a slightly different consistency, it can
get a little a tacky.
so if you roll it out between cling film or even grease proof paper, it will really make
all the difference I recommend you do it.
So, we shape it into a ball, flatten it slightly with our hands, and then drape over the top
layer of cling film.
And then get your rolling pin and very simply roll it into a large circle, whatever size
you need.
You want it to be around four millimeters thick.
I know that sounds quite specific, but any more and it's a bit too thick, and any thinner
and you risk it cracking.
So just try and get under half a centimeter, but definitely no thinner than three millimeters,
say.
So, finish rolling out your pastry, and then peel off the top layer of cling film and start
cutting out your tart shapes.
And use just a flat nosed, snub nosed knife to help lift it away from the cling film,
peel it away, and then fit it into your tart case, And then continue this, using your cutter,
and ball up and reroll any leftover pastry, and carry on until you've used up all of the
pastry you've made, as many tarts as you can.
So, we'll fit our last bit of pastry into the tart tin, just pushing the edges down
carefully as you go, and filling any cracks or gaps that might have appeared with any
excess pastry.
And then you're ready to fill the tart bases with jam.
So, I'm using strawberry.
You can use a mixture.
You can use any flavor you like.
So, we'll fill the tarts with a heaped teaspoon.
I mean, this is all dependent on how big your pastry cases are.
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And so, these are now ready to go into the oven at 180 degrees for around 15 minutes,
but keep an eye on them.
Now that our jam tarts are out of the oven, we're going to add another little spoonful
of jam to the hot jam that's already in the tarts and just stir them together gently.
And then we'll let them cool and set, and this will add an extra jammy layer, which
is what you really want in a jam tart.
Once you've added the extra jam, just leave the tarts to cool for a couple of minutes
in their tin, and then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before serving.
I've got lots more gluten, dairy, and egg free treats on offer, so if you want to see
my chocolate brownies, then give me a thumbs up.
So, here are my jam tarts, cooled and ready to eat.
I'm going to go and enjoy one with a nice cup of tea.
I hope you've enjoyed the recipes, and join me again for the next episodes of my Food
for All series.
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