Jam Tart Bars

(Original Post Date:  September 21, 2010)

Lately I’ve noticed the supermarket produce section bursting with juicy plums… giving me the sudden desire to make Spiced Black Plum Jam.  After making up a batch of jam with roughly 4 pounds of Black Plums, I realized that I didn’t have enough jars for all the extra jam.  What should I do with the extra 2 cups of jam sitting in the bottom of the pot?

Using my lemon bar shortbread crust recipe as a rough guideline, I created this jam-based tart or bar recipe.  Next time I might make this recipe into little tart shells for individual jam tarts… but I was feeling lazy last night, and decided to go with an easy bar recipe so that I could line the pan with foil for easy clean up.  I used my homemade Spiced Black Plum Jam, but store-bought jam in any flavor you like would work equally well.

Jam Tart Bars:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 c. jam (any flavor)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put the butter, flour, sugar, and salt into the work bowl of a food processor.  Pulse until the texture of coarse crumbs.  Reserve about 2 loosely packed cups of this mixture for topping.

2.  Line a 9 X 13 inch pan with foil (this step will make it easier to remove and cut the bars).  Dump in the crust crumbs, and press them into the pan to form an even crust.  Bake for 20 minutes.

3.  Stir the jam.  If the jam is too stiff, you may want to microwave for about 30 seconds to loosen it up.

4.  Spread the jam over the hot crust, all the way to the edges with a spoon.

5.  Top the jam with the reserved crust crumbs.

6.  Bake for 20 minutes more at 350 degrees.  Remove and cool for 5 minutes.

7.  Pull the foil out of the glass pan, and set on the counter top.  Cut into individual squares.  Store cool squares in a covered container at room temperature for up to 5 days.