Simple Recipe for Fern Tarts

Fern tarts, also known as fern cakes, are always one of the best-selling bakery items at Blighty's Tuck Store.

Fern tarts get their name from the chocolate fern design on the top. There is a technique used by professional bakers to get a perfect fern shape. It takes a lot of practice to get it right but the tarts taste just as good if, like me, you draw a simple tree shape. The recipe is not difficult but it does take a little time and patience to get it right. Here is how I did it.

Ingredients

• 1 pack Green's Sponge Mix
• 1 dozen frozen pastry shells
• Icing sugar
• Cadbury Cocoa powder
• Hartley's Strawberry Jelly

Preparation

• Lightly pre-bake the pastry shells and allow to cool
• Prepare the sponge mix according to the directions on the package
• Cut the Hartleys Strawberry Jelly cubes in half and place half a cube in the bottom of each tart shell
• Put a tablespoon of prepared sponge batter into the tart shells
• Bake at 400F for about 12 minutes then allow to cool

• Mix some icing sugar with a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a very small amount of boiling water. Adjust the amount of water and sugar until you have a stiff icing
• Spread the icing on top of each tart
• Make a little more icing, a little thinner this time, and add a generous amount of Cadbury Cocoa powder to it.
• Roll a piece of wax paper into a cone shape, leaving a small hole at the bottom.
• Spoon a small amount of cocoa icing into the paper cone while pinching it at the bottom
• Release the bottom of the cone and draw your best fern design on top of each tart
• Close all the doors to the kitchen and pig out - these are way too good to share with anybody!

John's Notes
Of course, you could make these tarts entirely from scratch. I used ingredients from the shelves at Blighty's Tuck Store simply for convenience. Some bakers use strawberry jam at the bottom of fern tarts instead of jelly. I chose to use jelly because it melts in the oven nicely while jam tends to get overcooked.

If you happen to have a proper kitchen tool for the icing you could use that instead. I don't have one and neither did the professional baker that I watched some while ago. He taught me the wax paper cone technique which works very well indeed. When finished simply toss it into the garbage and you're done.

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