Mini Lemon and Blueberry Tarts

Mini Lemon and Blueberry Tarts

Little bitesize pieces of sunshine, these tarts are filled with lemon curd and a hidden blueberry. If you don't have a flower cutter, just use a round one! 

Makes around 12 mini tarts

Ingredients:

Pastry:

• 125g plain flour
• 35g icing sugar
• 60g cold butter
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tbsp water

Lemon Curd:

• 100g caster sugar
• 60g butter
• Zest of 2 lemons
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• Handful of blueberries

Method:

1. In a blender, blitz together the flour, icing sugar and butter until it forms a breadcrumb consistency. You can do this by hand, it will just take longer, and you want to avoid the butter melting into the flour!
2. Add the egg yolk and water and blitz again until it starts to clump. If you need a bit more liquid, add a tiny bit more water until the dough comes together and you can form it into a ball.
3. Wrap in cling film and rest the pastry in the fridge for at least 20 minutes, meanwhile preheat the oven to 170 C (fan).
4. Roll the pastry out onto a lightly floured surface to around 4mm thick.
5. Using a 7cm flower cutter, cut out 12 flowers (you will need to re-roll the pastry until you have all your flowers).
6. Grease a mini cupcake tin (with wells around 5cm diameter) and carefully press the middle of the flower into the middle of the tin.
7. Use your fingers to neatly press the pastry into the well, and then gently fold the petals onto the top of the tin so they look like open flowers.
8. Place a mini cupcake case inside each tart and fill with baking beans.
9. Bake for around 12-15 minutes, keeping an eye on the petals, if they start to brown, take them out of the oven.
10. Carefully remove the cases with the baking beans and place the tarts back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes until the bottoms are baked.
11. Leave to cool.
12. For the curd, in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, heat the butter, sugar, zest and juice until melted.
13. Add the beaten eggs and whisk. Keep whisking until the curd thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
14. Pour through a sieve (optional but it gives a really smooth curd) into another bowl and leave to cool.
15. Once cool, transfer to a piping bag.
16. Place a blueberry at the bottom of each mini tart, and pipe enough curd into the tart to fully cover it. The curd will look like the centre of the flower.
17. Enjoy!

Head to my Instagram highlights @alice.fevronia for a video on how to make these, and if you give them a go, please tag me I would love to see!