What happens when you make lemon bars with lime, and instead of making them into bars, you make them in tarte pans?

You get this little gem of a dessert-

I am a huge fan of limes. I use lime for everything from tenderizing chicken to marinating beef to flavouring baked goods. I even use it during the summer to help fade my freckles when I’m in the sun too much! hehehe.. To me, its one of the best fruits ever.

The cool thing about this recipe is that the recipe for the base of the tarte is soft enough that its easily cut, but crunchy enough to remind you that its a crust. Also, the recipe for the filling solidifies pretty well and enables it to be stacked.

SEE!-

A slice for you!

This is my favourite photo from this dessert. Just look at all that gooey lime filling!

It’s true, this tarte really is “tart”. To counter act the tartness, I plan on serving it with a little dollop of whipped cream, and a drizzle of raspberry glaze. Since I’m not serving it just yet, I didnt want to get the tarte all gooey by putting the whipped cream on it, since the whipped cream melts fairly quickly.

I did taste some of it though. I made enough for one full Torte, and I had an extra Tarte left over. Instead of stacking it (that would have been a bit much, I think) I tasted a little nibblet of it. SO GOOD. I added a bit of extra lime juice to the mixture for the filling, and you can really taste it. I love lime, and I think the raspberry glaze will really work well with it in serving.

So here’s the recipe-

For the base-

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup softened butter
1/4 HEAPING cup of powdered sugar

Mix the sugar and butter together first, then add in the flour. Mixture will be crumbly.

Place one handful of the dough into 6- 4″ tartlette pans (with removable bottoms) and press down and around until the entire bottom is flat and level. The dough shouldn’t be too thin, but it will rise up a little in the baking process. Just make sure the dough is distributed evenly amongst the 6 tartlette pans.

Bake for about 10 minutes at 325 or until the base is lightly browned, and appears to have puffed up a bit.

While that is baking, quickly whisk together-

2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder.
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 teaspoons grated lime peel (or as much as you can gent from one lime. Totally optional though.)

Mix all of this together in the order it’s listed. The lime juice will cause the baking powder to fizzle a little bit, so do this as close to when the bases are finished cooking as possible.

When the bases are finished cooking and still hot, quickly pour about a 1/4 cup of the lime filling onto the bases. If you have any extra filling, try to distribute it evenly amongst the tartlette pans. Also, this mixture will rise a little bit, so keep in mind how full the pans are. If you’re within a quarter inch, its ok to let the extra filling go to waste, otherwise you risk loosing the whole tartlette.

Anyways, bake this mixture for another 7-10 minutes, or until the tops are puffy and golden brown. Remove from the oven, allow to cool until you are able to handle the pans with your bare hands. Remove them from the tartlette pans by pushing up on the bases. If you need to loosen the edges with a sharp knife, do so being careful not to cut into the tartlette, but also not into your hand. Allow the tarts to cool fully on a wire rack.

When the tarts have cooled completely, brush about a 1/8 teaspoon lime juice on the tops of two of the tarts. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar and stack one on top of the other, and then top the second with another tart which you have not brushed with lime juice. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and Voila! Add some lime garnish, or serve as is.

I served mine with a bit of raspberry glaze drizzled on top and around the base of the tart, with a big dollop of fresh whipped cream on the top, and garnished with a lime wedge and a mint sprig. There are no photos of this because it was eaten IMMEDIATELY. Yes, I had myself some happy dessert guests. I also had several requests for the recipe, so what you’ve got here, this is coveted by many!

So go ahead and give it a try. Of course, you could make lime squares the traditional way in a 8″x 8″ square pan, but why not have fun with it? You could even try making them in those nifty little silicone heart shaped pans. Just be sure you have a way of removing the whole thing, because the filling has a tendancy to stick to the sides of every pan, even the non stick ones.

Good luck!

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 1:38 am and is filed under April 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.