The queen of hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summers day.

Actually, she didn’t. The tarts came from Tesco, and there I found them in the larder, looking all sad, forlorn and underdressed. Something needed to be done to transform them into posh tarts. So using my new found meringue recipe, my trusty piping bag and a star nozzle, I topped a mixture of lemon and strawberry jam tarts with a meringue swirl.

These were then placed in the oven at gas mark 1 for one hour, then, as I decided they needed browning off, I placed them under the grill for a few minutes. They were then dusted with some icing sugar.

A HUGE warning dear friends, a low oven will still produce very hot jam!! I speak from a burning experience here. Also, I would suggest taking the tarts out of their little silver foils and putting them directly on a baking sheet. This produces a double baked very crisp bottom.

A lovely combination of crisp chewy meringue top, with a very crunchy pastry case. Great for an afternoon tea, especially when combined with some mini scone bites.