Tangy Lemony Tarts

Mike’s mom and dad sent me a delicious recipe that is a favourite in their house – Lemon Butter. Mike said his nanny used to make this recipe all the time and she used this recipe to make tarts. And who doesn’t love tarts? I made them mini-size, but you can make them in the regular “small tart” size. I checked – a regular “tart” is technically the size of a regular pie. Just know that I made the mini-size for a good time. Here is how I made these.

First, I made the lemon butter so it could cool in the fridge while I rolled out the pastry and cooked the mini shells.

Lemon Butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 lemon-juice and rind

• Cream butter and sugar.
• Add beaten eggs, lemon juice and rind.
• Cook until thickened over double boiler. *It took me about 15 or minutes or longer to get it to thicken up*
• Stir often.
• Stir in fridge – I’m not sure what that means, but I left it in because it’s funny.

This tangy custard thickens as it cools. I really wanted to make sure it would be thick for the tarts, so I did the jam test to it. All that means is that you take a teaspoon of the custard and put it on a plate. Put this plate in the fridge for a few minutes. You can tell the consistency of the lemon butter after it cools this way. Once I got it to the thickness I wanted. I put the whole bowl in the fridge to cool off while I moved on to the pastry.

I had some pastry left over from Grandma’s cookbook a couple of weeks ago. So I brought that out. Here’s what’s in it.

*SPOILER* – PURE LARD! And it’s delicious. This recipe is the best pastry recipe I’ve ever used. It rolls out nicely and doesn’t stick when you roll it out. It’s magic!

Pastry
*(For 3 – 9 inch pies with tops or 6 pies no tops)

5 & 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp salt
1 lb Tenderflake lard
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 egg slightly beaten water

Method:

Combine flour & salt. Cut in lard until mixture resembles coarse meal. Combine vinegar & egg in a glass measuring cup and add enough water to make 1 cup. Add to four, lard and salt mixture.
Form into 6 balls and roll out dough.

I rolled out 2 balls and that made 36 little tarts. I just cut out circles with a round cookie cutter I guessed would be the right size for the mini-muffin tin I used.

I baked the tart shells at 425° for 9 minutes – until they were lightly browned. I let them cool off before filling each one with delicious tangy lemon butter.

Enjoy with coffee or tea!

Added bonus:

This lemon butter keeps very well in the fridge. You can use the rest up on your breakfast toast or you can use it in between layers in a cake. Very, very delicious. I should really try that.

Tagged as: an old family favourite, delicious, eat it up, great recipes, lemon, lemon butter, make tarts, Mike's family loves this, mini tarts, more recipes, pastry, put it on toast, thank you Ted and Marion, yum