Saturday, September 29, 2012

Jamie Oliver's Quick Portuguese Tarts



I've long been a fan of Jamie Oliver. He loves food. He really loves food. And when he takes shortcuts they're not ridiculous ones that will sacrifice the flavour or appearance.

They might, however, veer from the sanctity of the original recipe, throwing purists into a tizzy. (Ahem).

I have to be honest, this is one such a recipe. But it doesn't bother me in the slightest because these tarts were so darn good.

I've eaten many a Portuguese tart in my time, straight from the real-deal Portuguese bakeries in Toronto.

And while these tarts were delicious, they bore only a slight resemblance to the tarts I know.

However, and this is a big however.... I kinda like these better. Shhh. The one caveat is that you need to eat them fresh. The next day they are not so good. I tried reheating them in the oven at a low heat - that didn't work. The consistency fell apart.

I even tried microwaving them for just a few seconds. If you've ever worked with puff pastry you'll know that's apt to turn them into a soggy mess.

So, if you make these, and you don't have enough people to around to finish them off, just eat them yourself. They won't be as good the next day.

You can find the recipe here.

Substitutions: I couldn't find golden caster sugar. I just use superfine sugar or whiz my regular granulated sugar in the food processor for about a minute.

Would I make this again? Well I've already made them more than once. So - yes, and yes. They're really easy. If you have the ingredients, making these scrumptious tarts becomes almost an afterthought.

Grade: Four stars out of five. If they kept as well the next day, maybe I wouldn't have docked that one point.

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