Hello friends! I hope your last few weeks of summer (sorry to remind you!) are going well! All of my friends are going back to school now, but luckily, one of my friends is still here! We took advantage of our extra time at home to bake some delicious desserts- from authentic Italian recipes! My friend spent a semester abroad in Rome, and came home with a cookbook created by her Italian program director. This cookbook is definitely one of a kind, because the translation to English is a bit rough- some of the recipes call for a “knob” of butter, and others don’t tell you what temperature or time to cook the dish for. We decided to just go for it and see what happened, and the results were divine, to say the least.
Our creation didn’t have an official name from the cookbook, so we’ll call it a Raspberry Jam Tart. We also made a Peach Cinnamon Tart, but I’ll get to that later! Here’s how to make it.
Ingredients/Materials:
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup softened margarine
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 cup jam of any flavor (we used raspberry to start)
- 10″ pie plate, buttered and floured
In a pie plate or on a large flat surface, pour the flour out and make a well in the middle of it. Put the eggs, margarine, sugar, and baking powder into the well. It might spill out a bit, but that’s just fine! Mix those ingredients with your hands, kneading the mixture into a dough. It may get a little messy, but that’s all part of the fun!
When the dough has formed, take 1/3 of the dough and set it aside. Roll out the other 2/3 to 1/8″ thickness, and until it fits in a 10″ pie plate. (Tip: to get the rolled dough into your pie plate without it breaking, roll it up over your rolling pin and then unroll it into the pie pan.)
Next, spoon the jam into the bottom of the tart dough, just until it covers the bottom of the pie plate. We had the privilege of using my mom’s homemade raspberry jam (and later her homemade peach cinnamon jam), but any other jam will work just as well. Cut the excess dough from the sides, so that there’s a very small edge of dough above the jam. This excess dough can be put with the other 1/3 of the dough that you set aside.
Roll out the other 1/3 of the dough and cut it into 1/4″ strips. Lay some of them horizontally along the pie plate, and some of them vertically, so that you have a lattice design on the tart. (Hint: we didn’t bother doing the fancy weaving for a real lattice, but it looks exactly the same when it comes out of the oven!)
Put the tart in the oven at 400ºF for 23 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. I know 23 minutes is a strange amount of time, but trust me on this one. When it comes out of the oven, let it cool a bit and then dig in! This tart is absolutely gorgeous, and just as yummy as it looks!
My friend and I had leftover dough, so we made a Cinnamon Peach Tart. It’s the exact same method, except we used a buttered 9×5″ baking pan and my mom’s peach cinnamon jam. It honestly tasted like a heavenly peach cobbler.
It was such a pleasure to bake with my friend, and to try my hand at some amazing Italian desserts! Believe me, the tarts are already eaten, and we’ll be baking plenty more desserts before school starts again. I hope you love this recipe as much as I did, and as the Italians would say, Ciao!
