Little Ivy

This week I had my first crack at pastry in the form of a lemon and lime tart. I say crack as while it was edible (actually it tasted pretty good), it was a long way from perfect. In particular the pastry was a bit thick and a little dry. However, for my first try I am pretty happy. I couldn’t say I have mastered it, so there will be a few more tarts to make yet but I had fun trying. And, it can’t have been that bad as everyone went back for seconds!

As well as learning about making pastry, I also learned a great lesson about filling up the base of your tart while it is still in the oven. I pulled mine out and put it on the stovetop (an uneven surface… not so smart). It was okay while I was filling it with the lemon and lime filling but when I went to pick up the tart I accidentally lifted the base up and the filling started pouring out on the bench, then the floor as I dashed towards the oven with it and then on the base of the oven. At that point I had a flashback to watching Heston Blumenthal when he said – make sure your pour your filling into the base while it is still on the oven tray. It probably would have been better to have had this thought before I made the huge mess, but I did learn a good (sticky) lesson!

This recipe was adapted from Julie Goodwin’s website (yes – of the Masterchef Australia fame (?!?).

What you need…

For the base:
1 ½ cups plain flour
¼ cup self raising flour
Pinch of salt
½ cup icing mixture
100g butter (chopped and chilled)
1 egg

For the filling:
½ cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
¼ cup lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 cup caster sugar
2/3 cup thickened cream
5 eggs, lightly beaten

The how to…

1) Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees and grease a tart tin.

2) Mix together the all base ingredients (except the egg) in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then add the egg and mix until it forms a ball. If it is still a bit crumbly and dry (like mine was) add a teaspoon or two of water and knead it in.

3) Wrap the doughball in clingwrap and put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

4) Roll out the pastry until it is about 5mm thick. As the pastry is very short, add it a piece at a time to the tart tin and press the edges together, trying to keep it the same thickness.

5) Blind bake the pastry for 10 minutes by covering with a piece of baking paper and some baking weights (or dry kidney beans in my case). Then remove the weights and bake for a further 15 minutes or until golden.

6) Mix together all filling ingredients except the eggs. Once well mixed, add the eggs a bit at a time, whipping the mixture as you go.

7) Pour into the tin (take note of what I said above!).

8) Bake for 25 minutes or until set. Store in the fridge until you are ready to serve.