LULLY LEMON AND RASPBERRY RIPPLE TARTLETS

 

I love using lemon in my baking. Hands down its my favourite dessert flavour. That beautiful sharp and zingy lemon taste is too die for. I also love making my own pastry. Crumbly and delicious homemade shortcrust is always miles ahead of shop bought. So I combined the two along with some fresh raspberries, raspberry jam and toasted almonds for these lully little lemon tartlets. The perfect way to round off any meal.

Ive talked in the past about how fab Clippys jam is and having bought some of their raspberry and apple jam, I had the brainwave of spreading some over the base of my tartlets to really add zing and compliment the fresh raspberry poking their little heads out the top. You can of course use any jam/fruit combination you like if you prefer but I find juicy raspberries are the perfect match for the lemon filling. You can also leave the jam and fruit out altogether, the zingy lemon can hold its own in the tarts as well. Perfect for the more fussy diner.

For a final flourish, some roasted almond flakes give a gorgeous nutty crunch to the top of your tartlets and match the ground almonds in the pastry cases. Pistachios would be great too. Remember that experimentation is the key to finding out what works best for you so don't be scared to mix and match ingredients to suit your taste or needs.

Here comes the recipe. This takes a few hours due to having to chill the pastry and set the lemon filling so if you are planning to serve this as part of a meal make sure you get cracking on it first. You can then get on with the rest of your meal during the chilling time. This recipe will make around 6 tarts in 10cm tins.

Lemon and Raspberry Ripple Tartlets

 
For The Pastry

100g Hard Butter (Cut Into Small Cubes)

 170g Plain Flour

30g Ground Almonds

50g Golden Caster Sugar

Zest Of 1 Lemon

Half Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 or 2 Egg Yolks

For The Filling

300ml Double Cream
75g Golden Caster Sugar
Zest and Juice Of 1 Lemon
Around 6 Tsp Raspberry Jam
Around 18 Fresh Raspberries
2 Tbsp Flaked Almonds

1. Begin with the pastry, place the butter and flour into a bowl and with cold dry hands rub them together until all the butter is mixed in and it resembles breadcrumbs. Take the time to make sure all the butter is mixed in so your pastry is nice and short when baked.
2. Mix in the almonds, sugar and lemon zest and mix until well combined. Add in the vanilla extract and 1 of the egg yolks. Start to work the pastry together with your hand. If the dough is not coming together then add a second egg yolk.
3. Once the pastry has come together, roll into a tight ball and wrap in cling film. Leave in the fridge to firm up for at least 30 minutes but if you leave it for any longer keep an eye on it so that it doesn't go too firm and hard to roll out.
4. After resting in the fridge, take out your pastry and on a floured surface roll out the pastry to 1/2cm thick. Grease your tartlet tins and cut out circles big enough to fit the tins. Use any leftover pastry to patch up any breakages and then placethe tartlet tins into the fridge again until the pasty was gone firm, should take another 30 minutes or so.
5. When the 30 minutes is nearly up, turn your oven on to 200 degrees (180 fan).
6. Remove the tart tins from the fridge and tin the pastry cases with baking paper and tip in some baking beans. Place your tartlet tins in the oven on a middle shelf and bake for 10 minutes or until the cases have gone golden brown. Remove form the oven and leave to completely cool.
7. Whilst the cases are cooling, place a saucepan on a low heatand add in the cream, sugar and lemon zest and stir constantly until all the sugar has dissolved. When the mixture starts to bubble slightly around the edge of the pan, stop stirring and leave the mixture on the heat for 2 minutes.
8. After the two minutes remove the pan from the heat and add in the lemon juice and quickly stir it in. You should notice the mixture thicken slightly with the addition of the lemon juice. Pass the mix through a sieve to remove the lemon zest and leave to one side to cool slightly.
9. Take the cool pastry cases and dollop 1 tsp of the jam into each and spread along the pastry bases. Make sure all the base is covered with jam (add a little more in if you need it but don't go overboard).
10. Once the lemon mixture has cooled slightly pour it into each of the jammy pastry cases and stick 3 raspberries on the top, pushing them down slightly into the lemon mix. 
11. In a dry pan on a medium heat, toast the flaked almonds until they are starting to brown. Sprinkle these over the top of each of the tartlets and then place them all in the fridge to set for around 2 hours.

 You will know that the tarts are set as they will have a slight wobble in the middle so give them a jiggle just to check before serving them up to your guests.

Remove from the fridge and serve with some single cream or a big dollop of ice cream. 

Perfection in a little pastry case!

Oh I definitely think so!






For more lemon based treats check out this gorgeous lemon and ginger meringue pie over on ohlavache.co . Might give it a go myself!