My mother was a great cook and baker. Her banana cake, butter tarts, peanut butter cookies and pies were legendary. Though not British, she baked something called jam buns, a dessert which I have only been able to find referenced on British websites. These buns had a unique texture and taste, which my siblings and I loved. Unfortunately, the original recipe is nowhere to be found.
The following reflects my first and second attempts to interpret a British recipe to reproduce my mother's jam buns. It was a technical challenge to produce a dozen jam buns that looked and tasted like those my mother made. In the end, I found the initial attempt (see Jam Buns - Part 1 at the bottom of this post) too sweet for my palate, and the texture of the bun was not quite right. Jam Buns - Part 2 coming up.
Jam Buns - Part 2
This time, I halved the sugar to 1/4 cup, increased the flour to 1.5 cups, added a 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, and replaced the milk with 2 beaten eggs. What resulted was very close to what I remember to be the jam buns of my childhood. I may have to tweak the recipe again, but for now, I think I killed this technical challenge.
Jam Buns - Part 1
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/8 cup margarine (presumably one could use butter)
- 6 tablespoons milk
- raspberry jam
In a medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the margarine to the bowl and mix it into the flour using your fingers until the whole thing resembles a bowl of sand. Stir in the sugar and then gradually add the milk, until a soft dough has formed. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it until it comes together. Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 cm. thickness and cut out rounds of dough sufficiently large to fit into the compartments on a tart/muffin tin. Once fitted into the tins, place a spoonful of jam onto each round of dough and fold the edges of the dough over the jam as you would when making a rustic tart.
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