Refined Sugar-Free Lemon Tartlets

I love the sharp, mouth-puckering brightness of lemon-flavored desserts, especially in the summertime. Once the weather starts to get warmer, I find myself gravitating toward effervescent citrus and seasonal fruits. When I’m feeling like making something easy, my Refined Sugar-Free Mixed Berry Galette is often a go-to, but when I’m up for a bit of a challenge, these refined sugar-free lemon tartlets are so worth the effort.

Be forewarned: this recipe takes a fair amount of time and patience, but the result is stunning. The star of the show is the sugar-free lemon curd, which uses raw honey to balance out fresh-squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest.

The first time I attempted this curd, it came out beautifully — but the second attempt yielded scrambled eggs. After doing a bit of reading, I learned that similar to the process of making the lactose-free cream cheese frosting featured on my Refined Sugar-Free Maple Carrot Cupcakes, the precise order in which you combine your ingredients matters.

Most curd recipes will tell you to toss everything into a saucepan and just start stirring on medium heat. But curds can sometimes turn eggy when the egg whites cook faster than the egg yolks. This can be mitigated by combining your ingredients in a stand mixer first: this helps to more evenly combine the egg whites and egg yolks, and coating everything in butter slows down the overall cooking speed on the eggs.

The pastry for the tartlet shells can be used to make 16 individual tartlets or one 9-inch tart. I personally love the look of individually decorated tartlets, but they can also be a fiddly pain in the ass. If you decide to make a 9-inch tart instead, double the lemon curd recipe.

My favorite decoration for these tartlets are blackberries and dill, but there are so many other flavors that pair great with lemon like blueberries, raspberries, basil, tarragon, and thyme.

Refined Sugar-Free Lemon Tartlets

Bright and tart with just the right amount of sweetness, these refined sugar-free lemon tartlets feature a raw honey lemon curd nestled in buttery flaky pastry.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Servings 16

Calories 165 kcal

Ingredients

  

For the pastry

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter (cubed)
• 1 egg
• 2 TBSP lactose-free milk

For the lemon curd

• 6 TBSP butter
• 1/3 cup raw honey
• 2 eggs
• 2 eggs yolks
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 tsp lemon zest

Instructions

 

Prep the pastry

• In a food processor, pulse together flour and salt.
• Add chilled cubed butter and pulse until the butter is broken up into pea-sized pieces or smaller.
• Add egg and milk and pulse approximately 25 times or until the dough starts to come together.
• Turn out the mixture onto the counter and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for one hour.

Make the lemon curd

• In a stand mixer, cream together butter and raw honey.
• Beat in eggs and egg yolks, scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure that all butter is incorporated.
• Add lemon juice and stir until combined. The mixture will look curdled, but don't worry--it's fine!
• Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and begin heating on low, stirring constantly. As the butter melts, the curd will smooth out.
• Once the mixture looks uniform, gently raise the heat to medium low and continue stirring until the curd thickens. Do not let the mixture boil--you can remove the saucepan from the heat and keep stirring if it starts to get too hot.
• The curd is done when it coats the back of a wooden spoon and you can draw a clean line by running your finger through the curd on the back of the spoon. As soon as the curd has thickened, remove from the heat and pass through a fine mesh strainer to remove any lumps.
• Stir the lemon zest into the strained curd, then place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the mixture to prevent a skin from forming while it cools.

Make the tartlet shells

• Removed the chilled pastry from the refrigerator and flour your work surface.
• Roll the dough out into an approximately 9-inch circle.
• Using a cookie cutter or biscuit cutter, stamp out individual circles that are two inches larger than your tartlet tins, re-rolling your dough as needed until you have 16 tartlet shells.
• Spray each tartlet tin with non-stick spray, then gently work the dough into the fluted edges of each tin, being careful not to stretch the dough.
• To prevent the tartlet shells from puffing up in the oven, prick the bottoms of the dough with a fork, add pie weights, or stack a second tartlet tin on top of your dough to help it hold its shape.
• Place tartlet tins in the frezer for 15-20 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350°F.
• Transfer frozen tartlet shells directly into the preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Cool tartlet shells completely, then fill with cooled lemon curd and decorate as desired!

Notes

Instead of making individual tartlets, you can also use this recipe to make a full-sized tart. The recipe for the pastry is the same, but you will need to double the lemon curd recipe.

Keyword Honey, lemon curd, Sugar-free, tartlets