Lately, I’ve been hearing about so many people with tonnes of allergies developing not only in their children, but in later years too! It’s terrible, as suddenly there are people who have gone through 40 years of their life eating whatever they want, and then finding out that they have developed an allergy to gluten, dairy, dried fruits…
I made these little tarts not for people with allergies though. but for some friends who happen to be vegetarian and who don’t eat eggs… And I just thought of all those who just can’t eat eggs for allergy reasons… tsk…
Don’t forget to line the moulds with butter and a little flour to ensure the tarts come out easily!
- Pastry cases:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup cold butter
- 4-5 tablespoon ice water
- Lemon Filling:
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup castor sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup cream
- 1 tsp grated lemon zest
- 2.5 tablespoon corn flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 drops yellow food coloring
- Strawberry Coulis:
- 125ml (4fl oz) water
- 125g (4oz) caster sugar
- 300g (10oz) hulled and halved strawberries
- Place flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.
- Using your fingertips, quickly rub in the butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs or place everything in a blender and blend until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- In a bowl, gradually add a tablespoon of ice water at a time, use your fingers to press the crumbs firmly together to form a ball of dough.
- Flatten out and wrap the dough in plastic, chill for 30 minutes-1 hour.
- For filling: Whisk together the sugar, lemon juice, cream, water, salt, corn flour and lemon zest. Add yellow food colouring.
- Preheat oven at 180 C.
- Roll the dough out, and using a round cookie cutter or a small glass, cut out round slightly bigger than the moulds. Press each disc into the mold starting from the base, push the dough outward with your thumb, trying to make the edges as evenly as you can. Fill up tart 3/4 full with lemon filling.
- Bake tart for 25-30 minutes @ 180 C until the edges are brown.
- Cool in muffin pan for 5 minutes, transfer onto rack to cool. They may seem quite liquidy when you remove them from the moulds, however they will firm up as they cool.
- For the strawberry coulis:
- Bring the water and caster sugar to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Add the hulled and halved strawberries and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until soft.
- Purée the mixture , and once the tarts have cooled, spoon onto the top of tarts in any way you like!
Ok, so they may not be the prettiest, most perfect looking little things, but they are yummmmmy, I swear! And pretty simple to put together… the dough is very straight forward and the filling, even more so! And that tangy, lemony zing is just to die for!!
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