I’ve had no time for anything at the moment so I’m doing a special blog today with the cooking and recipe done by my daughter.  She is an excellent cook and these little tarts were apparently devoured at the tea party to which she took them.  Enjoy!

Mini English Curd Tarts

Ingredients

Pastry: 1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry – see ‘You put the lime in the coconut …’ in the vault April 2011 for the recipe

Filling:

200g ricotta

250g mascarpone

2 eggs

1/2 – 3/4 cup castor sugar

zest of half an orange (finely grated)

1/2 cup currants

1/2 a nutmeg (grated)

1/2 – 1 tsp vanilla extract (to taste)

Method

Preheat oven to 200° C,  roll out pastry and press into a greased muffin tin.  Blind bake until lightly golden, remove from oven to cool and reduce oven temperature to 180°C.  Mix all filling ingredients together until well incorporated.  Spoon into cooled pastry shells then cook for 20 – 40 mins or until the filling springs back when you lightly press it.  Garnish with icing sugar and lavender.