Lemon tartlets

For a birthday lunch yesterday, I was worried we wouldn’t have any egg-free dessert for those in the family who don’t eat eggs. So I decided, somewhat last minute, to whip up these lemon tartlets. It was a bit of a race against the clock, but I managed to assemble them in time. Since it was my first time making this recipe, I wasn’t certain they had set, however, so I ended up serving the leftover lemon curd in a little glass to people who couldn’t partake in the bakery tart, and chilled the actual tartlets to enjoy today.

The dough is just a quick pâte brisée/shortcrust pastry, baked until golden and left to cool completely. I then prepared a lemon curd inspired by Nora Cooks. For this, I combined soymilk, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, and cornstarch in a pot and cooked until thickened. I did decide to omit the turmeric/food coloring, preferring the pale yellow naturally brought on by the lemon. It’s also nice to see the flecks of yellow zest throughout the curd. To accelerate the cooling, I transferred the lemon curd mix into a bowl, which I left in a larger bowl filled with ice water. Despite the simplicity of this dessert, I’m opting to post a short entry, so that I can find the recipe back in the future.

---

LEMON CURD RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 240 g unsweeteened, non-dairy milk of choice
• juice and zest from 2 large fresh squeezed lemons
• 100 g sugar
• 2 tbs cornstarch
• turmeric or yellow food coloring (optional)

  Procedure

1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.
2. Cook, stiring constantly, until thickened
3. Cool completely. Store in the fridge.

Sugar-free Earl Grey shortbreads

Yesterday was the birthday of one of my dojo friends. I wanted to bring shortbread cookies to share with everyone, but the birthday guy himself can’t consume sugar. Since I had a big jar of stevia among my stock of ingredients, I decided to challenge myself and make some sugar-free shortbreads for him.

“Merise”/Sour cherry tartlet

My uncle and my dad had picked some merises last weekend. I’m not sure which translation is most accurate, but it seems these are called “geans” or “sour cherries” in English. Dad gave me the box of fruits, and asked me to make a tart with them, since these are more sour than normal cherries and thus a little less pleasant to eat fresh.

End-of-year apple tarts

Yesterday was a day of pre-Christmas celebrations, both of which warranted for some baked goods. The first is a lunch/afternoon potluck-style celebration at the lab. It took me a couple of days of thinking to figure out what I was going to bring, as I was hesitating between shortbreads, cake, and a tart. Thankfully I went with a tart, as there were a lot of other cookies, brownie, and ice cream already. The second was a post-training end-of-year celebration at the aikido dojo I go to.

The process for making these was pretty much the same as in my apple tart tutorial. I spent Tuesday evening making the applesauce and preparing a double recipe of my shortcrust pastry (recipe linked in tutorial). I then put the applesauce in a tupperware, the reserved cooking syrup in a jar, and split the dough in half, wrapped in cling film, and stored everything in the fridge. Then on Wednesday night, I rolled out the dough, chilled it while preheating the oven, and blind baked it for 10 mins. Instead of going straight in with the applesauce, I opted to sift on a thin, even layer of cornstarch straight on top of the dough, as I feared the liquids would make it a bit soggy overnight. I then proceeded as usual, with applesauce, cinnamon, apple slices, and a little more cinnamon. Baked, cooled, glazed, then packed for commuting to lab, then later to the dojo.

A double recipe of the dough makes enough for approximately 3 tarts, so I may end up making a last one for the family this weekend.

Rose-shaped apple tartlets

It’s been a looooong time since I last baked a variation of apple tart that didn’t involve simply puff pastry, apples, and butter. This time, I baked these mini versions for a end-of-exams celebratory tea party with my classmates and parts of the academic staff.

Kiwi tartlets

A friend came to visit L and I in London, so I couldn’t let her leave without having some dessert. My original plan of baking mini apple tarts fell through when I completely forgot to buy apples. Since I did have some kiwi on hand, however, I could turn it into mini kiwi tarts~

Lemon bars

A few weeks ago, my cousin L and I had a friend over for dinner. I also had a single overripe banana sitting around waiting to be either used or dumped. Since I am no fan of dumping food, I looked for a way to use it up.

Reunion cheesecake

August 8, 2015

A week after my return from China and Hong Kong, I had a reunion with other alumni from my High School. Because we are spread all over the place, we had a mini European reunion for those of us based in Europe (and who could make it on that date).

Lemon and nectarine cheesecakes

 July 20, 2015

This was an unplanned cheesecake, to be honest. I went to the supermarket with my uncle, with the idea of getting ingredients for tiramisu. The cheese/dairy section of the first place we went to had been cleaned out, however, and the 2nd one did not have any ricotta or mascarpone. I had to settle for something else.

Small apple tarts

Whew, I got a lot of backlog to catch up on on this blog! For the past two months, I was on a trip to China. The internet there is fairly restricted, and all Google-related sites — Blogger* included — were out of my reach. Therefore, everything I baked had to stay on my camera or laptop for later blogging.

June 6th, 2015

A couple of days after my arrival in China, my aunt who lives there told me to eat the four apples that were in the fruit basket. Not really wanting to eat them plain, and itching to attempt my very first baking in such a hot climate, I settled with small apple tarts.