Mini Lemon Tarts

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Ingredients
(Makes 12 mini lemon tarts)

For Pastry Dough
  1. All-purpose flour – 2 cups
  2. Unsalted Butter (at room temperature) – ¼ cup (250gm)
  3. Powdered Sugar – ½ cup
  4. Pinch of Salt
  5. Eggs – 1
For the Tart Filling
  1. Lemon Juice – of 2 lemon
  2. Lemon Rind – 1 tbsp
  3. Corn Starch – 3 tbsp
  4. Egg – 2
  5. Unsalted Butter – 3 tbsp
  6. Sugar – ¼ cup
For Baking
  1. Mini Tart Shells – 12
  2. Electric Beater
  3. Cling Wrap
  4. Convection Oven
  5. Some cereals

Preparation

To make the Pastry Dough
  1. Take a large mixing bowl. Add the unsalted butter and mix well with a beater until it is creamy and smooth.
  2. Add the powdered sugar and beat it until the mixture becomes lightly fluffy, for a couple of minutes.
  3. Whisk the egg. Now slowly add the beaten egg (little by little) to the butter and sugar mixture until its all well incorporated.
  4. Add the all-purpose flour and a pinch of salt to this mixture and mix until all of it comes together, to form a dough.
  5. Transfer the content onto a cling wrap and gather it together. And then flatten it into an 8 inch circle. Wrap it in the plastic and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, so that it becomes firm just enough to roll out the pastry.

To make the Tart Shells
  1. Remove the pastry dough from the refrigerator after 30 minutes.
  2. Dust some flour on your kitchen counter-top. Roll out the dough to form a big circle using a rolling pin.
  3. Using a cookie cutter, cut out small circles of 4 inch diameter.
  4. Apply little butter on the inside of each of the tart shells. Now take one circle of the rolled out pastry sheet and place it inside the tart shell and press well along the bottom and the edges. Remove the excess dough along the outer edges using a knife or the rolling pin. The edges should now be smooth and uniform.
  5. Now cover these tart shells with cling wraps and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  6. After 30 minutes, remove the tart shells from the refrigerator. Using a fork, gently prick the bottom of each shell, which will prevent it from puffing up.
  7. As an additional step, you could place cling wraps inside each tart shell, and put some pie weight on top to prevent puffing. Over here, I have used some green gram cereals as the pie weight.
  8. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius and bake the tart for 15 minutes.
  9. Now remove the cling wrap and the pie weight and bake for another 5 more minutes.
  10. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool on a wire rack. Your mini tart shells are ready.

For the Tart Filling
  1. Take the corn starch and add the lemon juice to it and mix well so that there are no lumps.
  2. Heat 3 tbsp of water in a sauce pan.
  3. Add the unsalted butter to this and keep stirring until it completely melts.
  4. Add the lemon rind and sugar and melt them together.
  5. Once the sugar is completely melted, add the corn starch mixture to this and mix well for 2 minutes, until the mixture becomes little thick.
  6. Turn off the flame and allow the mixture to cool until it is just slightly warm.
  7. Whisk the eggs. Add the eggs to the above mixture little by little and mix it well using a whisk. Whisk it well so that the mixture does not curdle.
  8. Now cook this mixture again for 2 minutes on a medium flame by continuously whisking it, until it becomes slightly thick.
  9. Remove from flame and allow it to cool.

Final Steps
  1. Transfer the tart filling into a piping bag, once it is cool.
  2. Take each of the baked tart shells and fill it with the filling until it almost reaches the top.
  3. You can put some lemon rind or pistachios on top for garnish.
  4. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius and cook the tarts for another 5 minutes and not more.
  5. Yummy and delicious mini lemon tarts are ready.
  6. You can serve them as is or chilled.


For more such recipes, please visit sheebascookery.blogspot.com