Raspberry Curd Tart

I have been baking a lot of bread recently. With the self-isolation, several of our friends were unable to find bread in the nearly empty supermarkets and as I really like to bake I am giving a lot of bread away – a loaf or two a day. Luckily, I bought an extra 10 lbs of bread flour a couple of weeks ago, along with 5 lbs of AP flour and 4 lbs of sugar.

Today, I am taking a break from bread. I made a raspberry curd filled tart. I really like my chocolate tart with orange drizzle, but saw and adapted the Raspberry Curd to use with my tart shell. Luckily, the curd can be made in advance and refrigerated so today I only had to make the tart shell. (Don’t let me kid you. I also made 2 loaves of white sandwich bread for friends.)

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INGREDIENTS

Raspberry Curd
• 3 cups raspberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp Meyer lemon zest
• 2 Tbsp Meyer lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 Tbsp plus 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp chilled unsalted butter, diced

Tart Shell
• 100 g cold butter cut into small cubes
• 200 g almond flour (I may increase this by 50g, not sure yet)
• 60 g icing sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 eggs (100g) Topping

METHOD

1. For the raspberry curd, combine raspberries, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Bring mixture to a boil (about 5 minutes); reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Remove mixture from heat and let stand 5 minutes.
3. Place in a food processor or blender; process until smooth. Wipe pan clean and strain mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a cleaned pan and discard solids.
4. Whisk together egg yolks and cornstarch in a small bowl until smooth.
5. Stir yolk mixture into raspberry mixture; bring to a boil over medium-low heat (about 5 minutes). Be careful, the mixture can burn if heat it so high. If it does, do not scrape the bottom of the pan.
6. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly, then remove from heat (the mixture should coat the back of a spoon).
7. Add salt and butter, one piece at a time, stirring until smooth.
8. Place curd into a medium bowl; cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming.
9. Chill curd in the refrigerator at least 2 hours, or up to 1 week (if making in advance).
10. For the tart shell: Mix butter with sugar (I break up the chunks of butter by rubbing them into the sugar with my hands)
11. Add salt then vanilla
12. Add egg and mix well
13. Stir in flour. Mix by hand until incorporated. I did this in 3 parts mixing well between each.
14. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 30 min until it firms up a bit.
15. Butter (spray) tartlet pan
16. Coat hands with flour and press the sticky dough into tart mold
17. Prick holes in bottom and sides of formed dough
18. Add pastry weights to the pan
19. Bake in preheated oven 350o F (175o C) for 17 – 20 min
20. Remove pastry weights with 5 min left in the bake
21. Remove pastry shells from pans and let cool on wire rack To assemble tart, spoon raspberry curd into cooled tart shell and spread into an even layer with an offset spatula.
22. Arrange raspberries over filling in a decorative pattern.
23. Chill in the refrigerator 2 hours before serving.