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.
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.