Lemon Tartlets

Sloan's {1st} Birthday!

One of my best friends, Dana, has the sweetest little girl and she was turning O N E! We had to make it extra special. I am the annoying friend who loves to party plan as well as my other best woman, Steff. Our eyes lit up and our brain started feverishly planning the elaborate, unnecessary ways in which we would celebrate the lovely Sloan. 

 Her Mama is a "Green" Mom all the way. She makes her own cleaners, uses cloth diapers, uses essential oils and just does everything differently. She believes plastic contains harmful chemicals, so the lovely Sloan girl chews on wooden toys. That was the inspiration for the woodland theme! Plus, it didn't hurt that my recent wedding was a rustic, wood theme so we had plenty of resources to pull from. 

Steff would handle a lot of the decor, as I would handle the sweets portion of things. I will share our decor ideas in another blog;) I was slightly stumped at what to do, but I wanted it to reflect Dana and our theme. 

It came to me...I would do lemon tarts! I love the idea of using some sort of toasted marshmallow for a woodsy theme. It always makes me think of camping and being in the woods. As a girl who grew up in a desert like setting, woodsy represents a getaway to the woods that always included Smores.

To begin, I knew this recipe would require a Lemon Curd. Lemon curd is simply lemon, butter, sugar and egg yolks. It's like a Lemon Custard. I've researched the various recipes available and this is the one I like best because it features egg yolks as the base, as oppose to the other recipes that featured the whole egg. The yolk is what captures the richness and the decadence, and that is what I adore. 

Since this is a "Lemon" recipe, the type of lemons used are a vital part of the process. Most of the recipes called for Lemon. All lemons are not created equal. In my opinion, the best lemon for this job is the Meyer Lemon. It is hard to find at your local grocery store, but it is so worth it. A Meyer Lemon is a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange. That is what gives it it's subtle sweetness and lovely lemon flavor. I adore these lemons. Whenever I make something "lemony", I search high and low to find these and I use them in my recipe.

 They just have a lovely quality about them and they really enhance the "sweet" experience. 

Typically, I have to find these lovely little things at a farmer's market. We're blessed that in Orange County, there is a Farmer's Market somewhere, everyday of the week. These Meyer Lemons seem to always make their appearance there. So in a pinch, lemons could be used but Meyer Lemons are preferred. The Lemon Curd can be made early which helps lessen the work load of these labor intensive little tarts. I LOVE Martha Stewarts recipe for Lemon Curd. I have used it before for cake filling, so I knew I liked this one best. I doubled the recipe to make about 45 mini tartlets. I did the recipe two times, not doubled the recipe in one try. I wanted to control the quality, so I thought it was best to 

do two separate batches.

I have also used the same recipe for making an Orange Curd for my 

Orange Creamsicle cake!

Lemon Curd Recipe:

• 3 large egg yolks, strained
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

1. STEP 1

   Combine yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon whisk, making sure to stir sides and bottom of pan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes. Watch this step carefully. You're building the flavor and the base for the rest of the recipe. I used a whisk instead of a wooden spoon. I'm not sure if Martha would approve, but I found it mixed well.

2. STEP 2

    Once it's the consistency  of pudding you will remove saucepan from heat. Add cold butter, one piece at a time, stirring with the wooden spoon whisk until consistency is smooth. This is is lovely step. It  really starts to come together here and you can smell it's loveliness. 

3. STEP 3

   Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool; refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour. Yay! It's done!

  It's so easy I know you can do it! The best part about this recipe is that not only can you use this to make a tart, but you could serve this with scones for a brunch or tea party! 

Next we will need to make the crust. I think this was the most labor intensive part. While I watched TV, I cut gold foil cupcake holders down to a third of it's side. I thought it would ensure that I could get the crust out easily, and we could set the tarts on the wood stands without worry of food touching the stand. Next, I placed the cupcake holders into cupcake pans and got the dough ready for assembling.

 This was my first time making these, so it was all trial and error. When I began, I had rolled the dough out and used a cup to cut circles. They were too big and so I had to resize as placed them in. If I had the right size cutter, it would've cut my time down quite a bit. I recommend getting it if you can. By the time I was working on my 2nd batch of the crusts, I was taking pieces of dough and squishing it into place. 

Fun Fact:

This recipe caters to making a large tart which calls for beans to be placed in the middle as it bakes to keep the dough from rising as it cooks. 

I did not do that for mini tarts.

 That would've made it more labor intensive than I am comfortable with :)  

I will teach you the trick to what I did!

Tart Crust Recipe:

  12 tbsp. (11/2 Sticks) Unsalted Butter at room temperature

  1/2 c. Sugar

  1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

  1 3/4 All-purpose Flour

   Pinch of Salt

     Combine the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt in a mixer with paddle attachment. Once it's mixed, you want to take the sifted (mine wasn't) flour and add to the mixture on low. Once combined, you can put it on a floured surface to roll out to put into a large pan or for cutting out circles for our mini's. You will bake them at {350} for about 20 minutes or until browned on the top. Here's where my trickery is...

  Since I am not doing this method for a large tart...

Butter 1 side of a square of aluminum foil to fit inside the chilled tart and place it, buttered side down, on the pastry. Fill with beans or rice. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and beans, prick the tart all over with the tines of a fork, and bake again for 20 to 25 minutes more, or until lightly browned. Allow to cool to room temperature.

    . . . .I had to make due with another technique. At about 10 minutes, I took the pans out and took a tablespoon measurer and pushed a hollow space into the shell. It shouldn't stick as their is a lot of butter in this recipe, but you can dip it in flour if you're having trouble. I did this for every one of them and I did it immediately when I took them out when they were fully cooked. It created a lovely hollow space for our curd. Once cooled, I removed them from the pan with ease, thanks to my cupcake liners.

  Once it was cooled, I took my lemon curd out and used a cookie dough baller like this.

I scooped the lemon curd into each little crust and used a butter knife to smooth the surface. I put them into a fridge to let them set. 

Meringue:

This next step, I was excited to use my torch I got for my wedding. Sadly, I could not find, nor did I have the time to look, for the butane I needed to fill my torch with. So I had to improvise again, which I will teach you. 

Normally when my mom makes some sort of Meringue pie, she does the old school way of beating egg whites with sugar and cream of tartar. I wanted to attempt a different technique. When I make my Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I make a cooked meringue that I add butter to. This time though, I would make the meringue, and not add the butter and use it to top my tarts. I like shiny texture of it and it also seem to be more stable. The old meringue seemed so fragile and delicate, and my technique gives it some sturdiness.

Meringue Recipe:

2 c. Sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla 

1 1/4 c. egg whites

  Simple, Right? First, you will take a saucepan filled half way with water and get it to a boil at medium-high heat. Once it's a nice boil, you will take your standing mixer bowl filled with the sugar and egg whites and place on the sauce pan. Once on, take a whisk and whisk constantly together. Initially, it will look like....snot, but slowly it will break down. You are cooking the egg whites while also melting the sugar. As you whisk it will get easier to whisk until it is ready to be taken off the heat. The true test is to stick your thumb and finger into the mixture, pull out and rub your fingers together. If you feel sugar, it's not ready. If it's smooth and there are no bumpy particles, it's ready to come off the heat. 

    Now you will take that mixture and put it under your standing mixer and put on medium for about 20-30 minutes. You can turn on high at about 10 minutes. You want to mix it until it becomes the texture of marshmallow fluff. Once it's super thick, I removed it and put it into pastry bags that had a star tip. I then piped a design of the cream onto the tartlets.

  The toasty part...Turn you broiler on. I put the oven shelf on the top shelf. I then placed the tartlets on a pan and put them in the oven. I only put them in for literally 

{a minute} or so. You have to watch them oh so carefully! It can burn so easily as I found out.

And Voila!! You are finished and ready to display. These were so tasty and light. It was a nice contrast to all the rich cupcakes on display. I will definitely make this recipe again! The tartlets were the most charming dessert at the party!