Lemon Tartlets

Heel Holland Bakt winner Hans Spitsbaard teaches you in his book Leer bakken met Hans how to make his bakes from the show yourself. Such as these beautiful lemon tartlets.

Hans: ‘When making tartlets, I always use perforated baking rings from the De Buyer brand. These rings ensure a slightly neater result, and you don’t need blind-baking weights. Prepare the molds in the same way, but bake the bases for 15 minutes.’

Method

Mix the butter with the powdered sugar, egg and salt in the stand mixer. Then add the flour and almond flour and knead briefly until you have a cohesive dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Lemon crémeux

Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes. Bring the lemon juice and granulated sugar to a boil. Meanwhile, beat the eggs loose and weigh out 100 g. While stirring, pour the hot lemon juice into the eggs. Add the lemon zest, pour the mixture back into the pan and heat it to 85 °C. Then pour it into a mixing bowl and add the squeezed-out gelatin. Let the crémeux cool for 5 minutes. Add the butter and stir until smooth. Let the crémeux cool further in the refrigerator.

Italian meringue

Place the egg whites in the bowl of the stand mixer. Bring 200 g of the granulated sugar with 50 ml water to a boil until it reaches 120 °C. Start beating the egg whites as soon as the sugar syrup reaches 110 °C. When the egg whites are foamy, add the remaining 50 g granulated sugar. Pour the hot sugar syrup into the foam in a thin stream. Beat the mixture at medium speed for about 8 minutes until you have a firm meringue.

Making the pastry shells

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Grease the baking rings and roll out the sweet almond dough to about 3 mm thick. Use the baking rings to cut out circles for the bases and use the remaining dough to line the sides. Prick holes in the bases with a fork and neatly trim the edges at the top. Place the lined molds in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Baking and filling

Prick holes in the bases with a fork and line them with baking paper. Then fill them with blind-baking weights. Bake the bases in the oven for about 10 minutes. Remove the blind-baking weights and baking paper and bake the bases for about another 10 minutes until done. Remove the baking rings and let the bases cool completely. Stir the cooled lemon crémeux briefly, spoon it into a piping bag and fill the bases with it. Fit a piping bag with a plain nozzle, fill it with meringue and pipe small dollops onto the tartlets. Garnish with dried cornflowers and lime zest.

Technical tip

You can make tartlet bases beautifully smooth by using a sieve as sandpaper. Carefully run the baked bases over a sieve several times until all imperfections have disappeared.

Title: Leer bakken met Hans
Author: Hans Spitsbaard
Publisher: Kosmos
Price:€20,-