Check your jokes about Walesian virtue at the door–these are serious pastries–seriously tasty. Very good for a dessert buffet, a special picnic, even a breakfast tray. The quality of these tarts is dependent on the quality of your jam filling. Above I have used my Blackberry-Blueberry Jam and my Pear-Lemon Preserves. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I give the nod to Pear-Lemon.

WELSH TARTS
makes two dozen

Make Rough Puff Pastry:
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
6 oz. butter (1 1/2 sticks), cold
5 oz. iced water

Combine flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut up butter into pieces and cut into the flour with a pastry blender until the mixture looks rough and shaggy–do not blend until the butter is completely incorporated–small, bitty pieces, not big chunks. Stir in as much of the water as is necessary to form a nice ball.
Wrap the dough ball in waxed paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling out.

Make the Tarts:

1 recipe rough puff pastry
24 heaping teaspoons jam
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup ground rice (I pulverize brown rice in a blender or coffee grinder until a fine powder, like a fine cornmeal)
4 T. melted butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten

It is easier to work with the dough if you divide it in half and replace one half in the refrigerator while you work one half. Roll the dough out on a floured surface until thin–about 1/8 in. thick. Cut into rounds. I use the ring of a wide-mouth canning jar which is about 3 1/2 inches in diameter–it needs to be larger in circumference than a biscuit cutter. Press your scraps into a ball and roll out again until you have used up all the dough. Push the rounds gently into the cups of a muffin pan so they form little cups of pastry. Repeat with the other half of your dough. (If you only have one muffin pan you can bake half and repeat once the pan is cooled.)
Fill each pastry with a heaping teaspoon of your favorite jam or preserves.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the sugar, ground rice, melted butter and eggs. Spoon the rice mixture over the jam in each of the pastries.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the pastry and filling are lightly golden brown.
Remove from oven and turn the tarts out onto a rack to cool.