School Dinner Cornflake and Jam Tart (gluten free)

This cornflake and jam tart was first published on the Culinary Jumble in March 2016. The recipe (and images) remain unchanged. 

This simple pie was an absolute staple of canteens in the UK, especially in the 70’s and 80’s. Every child at school during those decades remember it well, most with fond nostalgia.

With a crumbly, coconut, pastry base, a liberal covering of sweet jam, and topping of crunchy, syrupy cornflakes, this school dinner cornflake and jam tart will have your floating down memory lane in no time. If you’ve never had the fortune to get this served up by your resident dinner lady, don’t that let you stop you trying it. It’s divine. And then some. 

I first made this nearly five years ago when I was on a fairly strict gluten free diet. Since then, as you know, I’ve moved away from totally gluten free towards spelt flour.

I haven’t made this with spelt. I would say, 99.9% of the time, you just straight swap spelt with whatever flour is in the recipe. However, the original recipe uses coconut flour and as this has rather particular properties, I would not recommend you attempting to use something else in its place. If you would like to use spelt (or regular flour), follow the recipe for my basic spelt pastry instead.

Make the recipe as simple (or complicated) as you like. Use a fancy, homemade jam like my Maple Syrup Berry Jam with Lemon and Chia Seeds. Or, if you want to be more authentic to the true dessert dished up many moons ago, simple jam straight from a jar works just as well. 

If you like the wander down memory lane with this cornflake and jam tart, check out my other sweet treats.

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Cornflake and Jam Tart (gluten free)

Course Dessert

Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

Pastry (see notes)

• 100g coconut flour
• 2 eggs
• 75g butter (melted)
• 1 tablespoon coconut sugar (or whatever you have)

Topping

• 120g golden syrup (or any light-coloured syrup)
• 100g cornflakes
• 55g butter
• 20g raw brown cane sugar (or whatever you have)
• 100g jam

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
• Melt the butter and allow to cool for several minutes.
• In a food processor or large bowl, mix the flour, eggs, sugar and melted butter until a crumbly dough forms.
• Grease a pie dish (mine was 27cm) and then push the dough evenly into the dish (and a little up the sides) using your hands or the back of spoon. The dough is very pliable, so it should be easy to mould it into the dish. Put in the fridge for around 10 minutes just to firm up a little.
• Bake for around 10-15 minutes, until golden at the edges, then remove and allow to cool for around five minutes.
• While the pastry is baking, prepare the cornflake topping: Melt sugar, butter and syrup in a pan until just slightly bubbling and then gently stir in cornflakes (you want to retain their shape and not crush them).
• Spread the jam over the pastry while it is still warm and then top with the cornflake mixture, making sure it is evenly distributed and covers all the jam. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 5-8 minutes, until the topping is crispy and feels "set". Remove and either eat straight away (perhaps with its classic companion - custard?) or leave to cool and enjoy cold!

Notes

I use metric measurements in my recipes. I believe using scales is the most accurate way to measure ingredients. Please feel free to use online tools to convert to cups (although a successful outcome cannot be guaranteed).

If you would like a more authentic pastry, follow the recipe instructions here. Then, just prepare the topping as per my recipe above.