I have previously tried to make sweet pastry twice; once in my flat in the middle of summer and once on a pastry course in the middle of summer. As sweet pastry mainly consists of butter, and funnily enough butter just melts when it’s hot, neither ended particularly well.
So, one morning I turned off all the heating in my flat. It was snowing outside which, coupled with no heating, made my kitchen (my whole flat really) like a fridge. ‘Perfect conditions to give sweet pastry another go,’ I thought. I used a Mary Berry recipe – been a while since we’ve seen one of those on here hasn’t it!
I’ll be honest, I may have gone into this with the wrong mindset because things started going wrong straight away. First I had real trouble separating the eggs for the pastry (I needed three yolks). I have no idea what happened but it was more difficult than it should have been and I usually don’t struggle. It’s just separating eggs! Why was it so tough? Got there in the end – mishap one, resolved.
Secondly, I cut my finger on the blade of my food processor when I was poking around to see if the mixture was doughy enough. Luckily I had some plasters at the back of my bathroom cupboard so managed to resolve mishap two.
Thirdly, the mixture wasn’t really forming a dough. I added a drop of water to it – I probably shouldn’t have done this but what are you going to do? Mishap three, sorted.
Then I left it in the fridge for an hour; Mary says you only need to leave it for 30 minutes but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Turns out that an hour in the fridge makes it harder to roll out than an actual brick but it’s fine, I would rather have to work slightly harder at rolling it out than it just be a puddle of melted butter.
And guess what? I even got it in the tin without too much trouble! I did have to patch up one bit and to be honest the base might have been a little bit thicker than it should be, but if all I can achieve when I make things is an improvement on previous attempts then I’m happy. With it a) not melting and b) being in the tin, I would definitely class this as improvement.
As the snow fell outside, being inside a flat-refrigerator hybrid was taking a toll and I was slightly turning blue at this point with icicles forming around my nose. I put the heating back on.
Things started looking up after the earlier mishaps!
The pastry baked perfectly, I mixed up the filling and popped that into the now cooked base and put it into the oven for 30 minutes. The recipe says it’s still supposed to have a bit of the wobble in the middle when it comes out of the oven; mine didn’t but look!! I’ve successfully got a lemon tart in the oven!! I wasn’t fussed about the lack of wobble.
When it was cool I dusted it with icing sugar and of course tried a piece – it was great. The pastry was nice and crisp; no soggy bottoms here.
I wouldn’t say this was a light tart, the filling is fairly heavy so you only need a small slice, but the texture is great and you can definitely taste the lemons.
I don’t even care about writing a review because I’m just so happy that I successfully made a tart out of sweet pastry! It might look a tad rustic and it definitely looks home made but I think that adds to its charm.
Lessons I’ve learned after this experience:
- Only make sweet pastry when it’s snowing outside. Just don’t bother the rest of the year
I did it guys and girls!!! Yesssssssss!
