Mini Lemon Tartlets

Nicole W doesn’t just throw incredible parties, she also makes incredible desserts.
When Nicole offered to put together a tutorial on how she made the mini lemon tartlets from her Secret Garden Baby Shower, I got very excited. Take a look at this photo and you will see why… just gorgeous!

Here’s how Nicole did her magic…
You will need:

• Prepared pie crust dough
• Lemon Curd (either bought or homemade).  I’ve done it both ways.  When I made my own, this was the recipe I used from Food Network.

Directions:

• Roll out pie crust
• Use a 3.75″ wide flower-shaped cookie cutter to cut out mini crusts

• Place the crusts gently in a lightly greased mini-muffin tin

• Fill halfway with lemon curd, being careful not to overfill

• Bake at 375 for 18 minutes, or until the pastry starts to turn a golden color

A special note on pie crust…
This is the recipe I always use for my pie crust:
Single Crust Pie Crust

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup butter-flavored shortening
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• Approximately 7 Tablespoons ice-cold water/vodka mixture

Pie crust is fussy stuff.  It can so easily turn into an incredibly hard and chewy mess.  You have to have an exquisitely gentle touch when combining the ingredients.  Gluten can develop so quickly and make your pie crust absolutely inedible.  To prevent formation of the gluten, we do things like use ice water, put the flour in the freezer, put the shortening in the freezer, barely mix the dough with the lightest touch possible, never re-roll the dough.
The magic bullet, however, came courtesy of Cooks Illustrated.  Flour needs water to develop gluten, so if you replace some of the water with another liquid (in this case vodka), the gluten can’t develop!  Brilliant!  I’m still gentle when handling my pie dough, but it can take so much more abuse if you just replace about 1/3 of the water with vodka.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive one, and the alcohol bakes out.
I buy exceptionally cheap vodka in a giant plastic bottle for cake decorating and making pie crusts.  And yes, I did get the one named Borg so that if I ever did decide to drink the stuff, I could wake up the next morning nursing a headache and saying “I was annihilated by the Borg.” 

I had no idea you were a geek, Nicole!  Thank you for putting together this tutorial. My husband could eat that entire plate of tartlets.
As I mentioned above, Nicole makes fantastic cakes and desserts so please check out her other parties. Also, to learn more about Nicole check out the custom wedding accessories she designs as her day job.