Pasta Frola con Dulce De Batata - Sweet Potato Tart

Pasta Frola is a tart made traditionally with quince jam. It is very common in Uruguay and Argentina. In Uruguay we also have bastardised this tart and make it with other types of jams.

We have many so called jams in Uruguay, which are so different to what is regarded as a jam in Australia. We have milk jam, tomato jam, sweet potato jam, quince jam, pumpkin jam.

Milk jam is basically a thick rich caramel which we use for many of our desserts. It is a staple in our celebration cakes which normally consist of a sponge or butter cake filled with dulce de leche (milk jam) , Chantilly cream, and sometimes pieces of peach. Mostly these cakes are covered in a beautiful cooked soft meringue.

We eat dulce de leche on bread or on our lovely "tortas fritas" (which I will blog about another time). It is delicious on creme caramel and we also use it to fill these tarts. YUMMY. But I digress, today is not about Dulce de leche.

The texture and consistency of the quince, sweet potato and pumpkin jams is very similar. They are more like thick pastes which can be cut into slices, and eaten on bread or with cheese. They are all very different in flavour but all so delicious. All of these can be used as a filling for this tart. The traditional filling for a "Pasta Frola" as previously mentioned is the quince jam or "Dulce de Membrillo".

Yesterday my mum gave me a tin of "Dulce de Batata", or sweet potato jam. I love it!! I guess it must be an acquired taste, neither mum or dad are big fans of it, but they will eat it if they must.

Today we had lunch at mum and dad's. Mum made stuffed capsicums and a pasta sauce. I brought home made egg fettuccine and a Pasta Frola which I made with the sweet potato jam.

The recipe for the Pasta Frola that I used is an old family recipe that we have had for over 30 years, and possibly my mum has had since before I was born. It came from a little booklet which came with our "Royal" which is the brand of Uruguayan baking powder.
Anyway here is the recipe for the tart

Pasta Frola
125gms softened butter
100gms white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
240gms plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1tsp grated lemon rind
1/4 tsp salt
Filling
300gms Quince Jam (please note that I did not use quince, i used sweet potato)
2 Tbs water(for softening the jam)

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
   
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add egg & yolk one at a time beating well after each addition.
4. Mix in lemon rind
5. Add flour, baking powder and salt (sifted together) to the first mix, forming a soft dough. Do not over knead or the dough will become tough.
6. Roll out 2/3 of the dough and place it in a 23cm tart pan.
7. Spread the filling over the dough and use the remaining pastry to decorate the top of the tart by cutting out strips of dough and placing it in a lattice pattern on top.
8. Bake at 180 for 30 minutes.

I sometimes make the recipe with margarine instead of butter, I did so today. For the filling as I specified before I used the sweet potato, I just used a whole tin like the ones pictured above, and placed the contents into the food processor. This made it really easy to get a really smooth filling.

This dough is also lovely to make cookies with, and it's also the same recipe I used for these Lime Meringue Tarts which are gluten free

It is very easy to convert this recipe to gluten free, you just swap the flour and baking powder for Orgran Gluten Free Self Raising Flour.
The recipe for the lime curd is here http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Lime-Curd-L2437.html