Wednesday, 15 January 2014

Aileen's Apricot Tartlets

Apricot tartlets
Makes 10

Pastry
1 large egg
30g sugar
20g ground almond
130g flour
50g butter
2 pinches salt

Curd
300g fresh apricots, pitted
80g sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp lemon juice

Meringue
3 egg whites
180g sugar
60ml water
1 pinch of salt

Making the pastry
  1. In a large bowl mix together the egg, the sugar, the ground almond and the salt.
  2. Fold in the flour then add the butter. When properly blended, make into a ball and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
  3. Preheat your oven at 190°C.
  4. Dust some flour on your tabletop and roll out your dough until you obtain 3mm of thickness. Cut out dough circles so that they are slightly larger than your moulds. This way the dough will fall over the edge. Place the dough onto each mould and put in the freezer for 10 minutes.
  5. Place some baking beans on the bottom of your moulds and put in the oven for 10 minutes at 190°C.
  6. Get rid of the beans and cut off the extra dough at the top. Doing so will give you a perfectly shaped tart. Put back in the oven for some more minutes then put aside to cool down.

Making the curd
  1.  Blend the apricots with the lemon juice and 2 tbsp of water until you obtain a purée.  Pop this mixture through a sieve to get rid of the fruit bits and fibres.
  2. Heat up the apricot purée on medium heat. 
  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, the sugar and the cornflour together.
  4. Pour the heated apricot over the egg mix and return to the heat.
  5. Keep mixing until you have a smooth texture.
  6. Pop this mixture into each tartlet case, once they have cooled.

Making the meringue topping
  1. Make syrup by heating up the sugar and water. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with the salt. When the syrup reaches 118°C, pour it slowly over the egg meringue while mixing.  If you don’t have a thermometer like me, the soft ball test worked fine.
  2. With a piping bag, cover the top of your tarts.  I tried a couple of different piping patterns to mix it up a bit.  Finally put under the grill to give it a golden finish.


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