Lemon Meringue Tartlets
This recipe will create ten small tartlets. Tangy, sweet, and refreshing. Perfect for warm summer days or when you’re craving a citrusy treat.
Servings: 10 tartlets
Notes
Ingredients
Tart Shell
- 200 g Flour Type 405
- 70 g Icing sugar
- 20 g Cornstarch
- 0,5 g Salt
- 100 g vButter cold
- 15 g Water cold
Lemon Custard
- 180 g Sugar white
- Zest of 3 lemons
- 120 g Lemon Juice roughly 3 lemons
- 90 g vMilk Alpro Not Milk or soy milk
- 90 g vMilk Alpro Not Milk or soy milk
- 36 g Cornstarch
- 90 g vButter
Meringue
- 75 g Reduced aquafaba
- 225 g Sugar white
- 50 g Water
- 0,5 g Citric Acid
Equipment
- 1 Standmixer KitchenAid Artisan
- 1 Paddle Attachment
- 1 Saucepan
- 2 Sheets of parchment paper
- 10 Tartlet Rings 8 cm diameter
- 1 Rolling Pin
- Wooden guides for thickness
- 1 Baking Rack
- 1 Silicone Mat perforated
- 1 Zester Microplane
- 2 Piping Bags
Instructions
Italian Meringue – Part 1
- Sieve the canned chickpeas into a small pot until you have 150 g aquafaba.
- Reduce the aquafaba over medium heat to half of its weight.
- Let the reduced liquid cool in the fridge
Tart Shell
- Mix flour, icing sugar, cornstarch and salt in a standmixer bowl or in a normal bowl if you want to do it by hand.
- With the paddle attachment on the KitchenAid slowly mix everything together on low speed (Speed 1).
- Cut the cold butter into cubes and put them in the mixing bowl all at once.
- Mix on slow speed (KA 1) for about 20 seconds and then speed it up a bit (Speed 4).
- Mix until the dough has a wet sand like texture after around 3 minutes
- Pour in the cold water and mix until the dough comes together for another 2 minutes.
- Put the dough onto a working surface and push with the palm of your hand the dough away from you onto the counter top. Collect the dough again and repeat this process for 1 minute.This technique is called fraisage in french patisserie. It helps create a uniform and delicate tart shell without overworking the dough.
- Put the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper, flatten it to 5 mm and chill it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Rolling and Baking
- After the dough has been chilled you can continue with rolling out to around 3 mm thickness. Use some flour because the dough may stick.
- Preheat the oven to 160 ℃ top bottom heat.
- I am using tartlet rings with 8 cm diameter.I recommend using a 11 cm diameter cookie cutter to cut out circles from the dough
- After you cut out a circle carefully pick it up with your hands and place it on top of a tartlet ring. While rotating you push down the dough into the ring little by little.
- When the dough has reached the bottom corner of the metal tartlet ring you can cut of the excess with a sharp knife.
- Repeat this process for all of the remaining tartlets.
- Put the tartlets onto the baking rack with a perforated silicone mat if you have one.
- Bake the tartlets for around 20 minutes.
- Let them cool down completely.
Lemon Custard
- Put the sugar into a sauce pan.
- Zest 3 lemons completely into the sugar.
- Rub the lemon zest into the sugar with your hands to release the essential oils.
- Juice the lemons and mix the juice into the saucepan together with 90 grams of the plant milk.
- Bring it to a simmer.
- In the meantime prepare a slurry made of the second part of the milk and cornstarch. Make sure there a no clumps in the slurry.
- Pour the slurry into the simmering liquid, while constantly whisking.
- Cook the custard for around 2 minutes.
- Take the custard of the heat and stir in the vegan butter.
- Fill the custard into the tart shells and immediately cover with cling film. You can use a piping bag for easier filling of the tartlets.
- Let them cool at room temperature, then in the fridge.
Italian Meringue – Part 2
- Pour the reduced aquafaba into a bowl of your standmixer.
- Add in the citric acid.
- In a small pot heat water and sugar until it reaches 118 °C. For this step you will need a digital thermometer, without its nearly impossible to reach the exact temperature and therefore the right sugar crystal structure.
- In the meantime whip the aquafaba on medium speed for 3 minutes (Speed 6).
- While constantly whisking drizzle in the sugar syrup onto the side of the bowl.
- Stop whisking when the meringue is back to room temperature.
- If everything went correct you should be left with a stable italian meringue.
- Fill it into a piping bag and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
Meringue Topping
- Pipe the Meringue onto the chilled tartlets in a wave like motion.
- Use a kitchen torch to caramelise the meringue.
