Tag: lemon

Tartelette aux Framboises

27 June 2022

A few weeks ago, we made lemon curd using kaffir limes. The curd is sweet, smooth, rich, tart and slightly floral. It made us think of tarte au citron, or even better of tartelette aux framboises. What a delicious idea! Lemon and raspberries are a match made in heaven.

However, we must admit, we’re not too familiar with patisserie. We searched the internet a bit, opened a few cookbooks and to our surprise we found a range of suggestions for the dough of the tartelette. Typical the moment to make life simple and rely on the choice of an expert. In our case Dutch patissier Cees Holtkamp. Renowned for his excellent patisserie and his truly delicious croquettes. If you ever have an opportunity to visit the shop in Amsterdam, please, please do so. His book (in English it’s called Dutch Pastry) is available via the well known channels.
You could of course also rely on a French classic, for instance Tarte Tatin by Ginette Mathiot.

Back to our plan: we made pâte sucrée for our tartelette with fresh raspberries. The result looks good and tastes even better.

What You Need

  • Pâte Sucrée
    • 125 grams of Butter
    • 125 grams of Flour
    • 40 grams of Sugar
    • Pinch of Salt
    • 1 Egg
  • Lemon Curd
  • Fresh Raspberries

What You Do

We use tartelette moulds with a diameter of approximately 7 centimetres (2,75 inches). The butter must be soft but not warm (18 °C or 65 °F). Beat the egg. Combine flour, sugar and salt. Dice the butter and knead with the mixture. When well mixed, add the egg and knead until you have a nice dough. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

Coat the moulds with butter. Remove the pastry from the refrigerator. Place it on a floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin. Perhaps dust the dough with flour. Divide the dough into 6 portions and make small circles. Press the pastry onto the bottom and to the sides. Cut of overhanging dough. Transfer to the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 175 °C or 350 °F.
Line with parchment paper and use dry beans to fill the moulds. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the paper and the beans. Bake for another 10 minutes. When golden brown, remove the tartelette from the mould and let cool on a grid.
When cool, add the lemon curd and decorate with the raspberries.

Tartelette aux Framboises ©cadwu
Ginette Mathiot - Tarte Tatin
Cees Holtkamp

Lemon Curd

2 June 2022

A Lemon Meringue Pie, a Tarte au Citron or Scones with Lemon Curd: tasty, refreshing, bitter, sour, a bit sharp and sweet. We love it! Provided of course that the lemon is more than just juicy and sour.

This has been a bit of an issue over the past years. Similar to the German consumers who complained about the watery and flavourless Dutch tomatoes they bought around 1990, we think that most lemons lack aroma and taste. We tried limes, bought more expensive lemons, added a bit of yuzu, but in the end, we still missed the true taste and aroma of an old-fashioned lemon.

Until one day we bought a Bergamot lemon. Its aroma is intense, floral and long. The juice is sour, deeply citrusy, refreshing and bright. Exactly what we were looking for! We went home and prepared a lovely curd.

Recently we had a similar experience when we visited a dear friend. She grows a Kaffir Lime tree, also known as Makrut Lime, in her garden mainly because she wants to use the fresh leaves in Thai and Indonesian dishes such as Tom Yum, Soto Ayam and various curries. The leaves have a complex citrus flavour with floral notes. We talked about the lovely yellow fruit and how you could use its very aromatic zest as well.
The fruit contains little juice, so when preparing a curd with Kaffir limes, you need to add lime, Bergamot or lemon juice.

What You Need

  • 65 ml of Lemon, Lime, Bergamot and/or Kaffir Lime Juice
  • 65 grams of Butter
  • 100 grams of Sugar
  • One Egg
  • Zest

What You Do

Beat the egg, melt the butter and combine all ingredients. Make sure the sugar is dissolved. Cook Au Bain Marie until you have the right consistency. Or transfer to your microwave, put it on 50% or 70% power and heat with intervals of 20-30 seconds. Mix between the intervals. This is a very precise way of heating the mixture and it gives you full control over the process. Towards the end of the process you may want to reduce the power or shorten the intervals. The percentage and the duration of the intervals depend on your microwave and the bowl you use. We use a microwave saucepan (£1,29 only) and it works perfectly. The material doesn’t absorb warmth, so the mixture doesn’t get extra heated when you stop the microwave. Pass through a sieve (you don’t want the zest in the curd), cool in a water bassin and store in a jar.
The curd keeps for a week in the refrigerator .

PS

Around 1992 a German television program characterised the Dutch tomatoes as watery and tasteless, and called them ‘wasserbombe’. The short-term impact was enormous: the Dutch tomato went from 50% market share in Germany to something close to zero. Longer term the impact was very different: Dutch producers invested in their product, making their tomatoes tastier, richer and more diverse.

Lemon Curd ©cadwu
Kaffir Limes ©cadwu
Kaffir Lime Plant ©cadwu