LEMON COOKIE TARTS
- Cookie dough:
- ½ cup castor sugar
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup icing sugar
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 cups cake flour
- Lemon Curd Filling:
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup castor sugar
- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
- 4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
In a bowl over a pot of simmering water add eggs, sugar and lemon juice and continually whisk for about 10 minutes until mixture is blended and starts to thicken. Remove from heat and pour mixture through a fine strainer in case there are any lumps. Cube butter into small pieces and whisk through until the butter melts and then add the lemon zest.
Cover in cling wrap so a skin does not form. Allow to cool then fill your tarts. Dust with icing sugar and add lemon zest.
Cookie preparation:
In food processor pulse castor sugar, icing sugar and butter till creamy. Can be done with electric beaters as well.
Mix rest of ingredients except lemon curd mix until a smooth dough is formed.
Chill 15 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap. I left in the bowl in fridge.
Spray mini muffin tins with spray-n-cook.
Measure 1 Tbsp of dough.
Roll into ball place one in each hole of mini tart pan.
Using your thumb make a center with the dough making sure that the dough in uniform size all around and not to thin on the top.
Bake at 180°C for 9 minutes or until dough is slightly firm but not set. They may close up during cooking.
Remove tart shells from oven working quickly and using the back of a rounded 1/2 tsp measuring spoon gently press a shallow indentation in each shell. (Don’t let them cool or it will be harder to get them to form a shell).
Bake 4 to 5 minutes longer or until edges of shells are firm and golden.
Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes.
Carefully remove from pan and transfer to cooling rack, if they need more shaping you can do that now.
Cool completely before filling. Can be made to this point and frozen (but thaw to room temp before filling).
Recipe yields 24.
Photo: Gail Haselsteiner
