Tangy Mini Lemon Tarts

One bite and you're on your way to taste bud heaven. These mini tarts are just enough to quench any lemon craving.

Ingredients:


Crust:
1 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of butter, softened
1/3  cup of granulated sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract


Filling:
3 eggs, separated
2 lemons (small)
1 can of condensed milk (unsweetened)
1/8 teaspoon of salt


****The filling and crust recipes have been adapted from website Cooks.com and blog Gluten-free Tuesday. 


Method: preheat oven to 350


Crust directions:
1. Mix together both flours and salt into a bowl until fully combined. 
2. Next, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until a nice paste is formed. 
3. Once the paste has formed add the dry ingredients to the wet slowly. After about 30 seconds a nice crumbly dough should have formed. Then beat on medium speed for another 2 mins. until dough has formed.
4. Lightly spray the mini cupcake pan and press the dough into the tin forming a thin crust in each hole. 
5. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours. 


Filling Directions:
1. First grade the rind of the lemon to get lemon zest, then juice both lemons. Make sure you strain the lemon juice so you don't get any pits in the filling.
2. Beat the egg yolks then add the lemon juice, zest, condensed milk and salt to the mixture. Mix together well until blended.
3. Next beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until they are stiff, then gently fold into the previous mixture. 
4. Finally, pour lemon mixture into the mini cupcake tins and and the bake in the oven for about 30 mins.




My sisters and I recently decided to throw a little dinner party for a friend of ours who was visiting from out of town, but struggled to think of a nice, light dessert to serve. We thought of all our options, from chocolate covered strawberries, to ice cream, to cupcakes, until we finally decided on mini tarts. Let's face it, who doesn't love something that's mini? The smaller the better in my opinion.

I've been craving everything lemon lately, so naturally I wanted to make a lemon custard tart. These tarts ended up being pretty time consuming, having to chill the crust for a few hours, but they were totally worth the work! They are tangy, sweet and super satisfying. Although I must warn you, it is almost impossible to eat just one.

I ended up having a lot of the lemon custard filling left over so I decided to pour the extra filling in small ramekin dishes to eat as a plain custard. In fact, I highly recommend doing this because the custard by itself was almost as good as the tart itself.

If you're a lemon lover like I am (can you tell?), then you must try this recipe. You will be pleasantly surprised by the strong lemon flavor, which so perfectly complements the sweet, buttery crust. The only thing that could make this tart better is to top it off with a healthy sized dollop of whipped cream!