Tart Baking with Lauren

My beautiful and sweet niece, Lauren, was home a few weeks ago and she was in the baking mood.  I’m so proud of her for cultivating her domestic skills so well and she has gotten into making these beautiful tarts.  She was going to a book club meeting while she was home and so she whipped up a batch of these magazine worthy tarts.  They were equally delicious too.  We all got to sample them.

She enjoys making them so much she bought a Williams Sonoma tart baking set, which consists of the tart pan, crust shaper and cookie cutter.

Here’s the little gadgets that come with the tart pan.

Rolling out the dough

Cutting out with the cutter for the tart shape

Add into the tart pan and then she smooshes the dough with that handy little gadget.

She pricks it with a fork to make sure it doesn’t puff up while baking.

And there they are out of the oven.

She’s got all the ingredients ready to go.

Including some yummy raspberries.

Lemon tart filling.

Lemon zest

Lemon and lime zest

Filling the tarts with raspberry jam

Adding more filling on top and these are ready to bake.

They come out like this and she added almonds to the top, as well as 3 fresh raspberries.

Filling the lemon tarts

Adding the lemon-lime zest with a baggie

Then adding whipped cream on top, they are ready to eat.

Don’t they look delicious?  They were so good!  I think the presentation on these is really wonderful.

She took the Almond Raspberry tart recipe from The Galley Gourmet and modified it for her tart pan.

Here’s the recipe for the Lemon Lime Cream Tarts:

Lemon Lime Cream Tarts

For the crust, you can buy a Pillsbury pie crust or make one from scratch. Lauren used Julia Child’s sugar crust recipe:

1 1/3 cups flour

3 to 7 TBLS. sugar (she used 5)

1/3 TSP baking powder

5 TBLS chilled butter and 2 TBS chilled vegetable shortening

1 egg beaten with 1 TSP water

1/2 TSP vanilla extract

Place the flour, sugar, butter, vegetable shortening, and baking powder in the mixing bowl.  Rub the fat and dry ingredients together rapidly with the tips of your fingers until the butter and shortening are broken into bits the size of small oatmeal flakes.  Blend in the egg and vanilla, and knead the dough rapidly into a ball.  Place on a pastry board and with the heel of your hand, not the palm, rapidly press the pastry by two spoonful bits down on the board and away from you in a firm, quick smear of about 6 inches.  The dough will be pretty sticky.  Form again into a ball, wrap in wax paper, and chill for several hours until firm.  After chilled, press the dough into your tart pan or mini tart pan.  If you’re using a big tart pan, line it with parchment paper and put dry beans in it to hold the dough in place.  Bake the crust in the middle level of your oven at 375 for 5 to 6 minutes until the dough is set.  Then remove the beans and parchment paper, prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork in several places, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes more.  The shell is done when it has shrunk slightly from the mold and begins to brown very lightly.  Immediately remove the mold from the shell and slip the shell onto a rack.  It will become crusty as it cools.

 

Filling:  (she doubled the filling)

1 (3 oz.) package cream cheese, softened

2 TBLS powdered sugar

2 TBLS whipped cream

1 TSP grated lime peel

1/4 cup lemon curd

 

Garnish:

Whipped cream

Strips of lime peel

1. If you use Pillsbury crust; heat oven to 450.  Cut four 4-inch rounds from crust.  Press each crust into 4 inch tart pan.  Prick bottom with fork.  Bake at 450 for 5 to 9 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool 15 minutes or until completely cooled.
2. Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and shipping cream.  Beat until smooth.  Divide evenly into cooled tart shells.
3. In small bowl, stir grated lime peel into lemon curd until smooth.  Spoon evenly on top of cream cheese mixture in shells to within 1/4 inch of edges.  Garnish with whipped cream and lime peel strips.

 

We all got a little snuggle time in with this little girl while she was home too.  Stickers is part of the family now and we love her.  She is the cuddliest little thing you’ve ever seen.  She loves to cuddle in a lap and snooze.

The winner of the Initials Inc. giveaway has been posted here and the winner emailed!

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