Mike van de Elzen: Lime Tart

Farm Lime Tart 

Cook time: 55 minutes 

Prep time: 20 minutes 

Serves: 2 tarts 

1 x sweet shortcrust pastry  

1 egg, lightly beaten  

Zest and juice of 7 limes  

1 cup + 1tbsp caster sugar  

500ml cream  

3 eggs  

3 egg yolks  

Top tip: Remember when rolling out pastry, the more your pastry resembles a circle to begin with, the more likely it is to finish up a circle! 

Preheat the oven to 180*c. Roll your sweet shortcrust pastry out on a lightly floured bench, make sure to constantly lift and move your pastry, re-dusting with flour when necessary to prevent sticking. Line your tart tins, easing the edges in gently to prevent tearing before trimming. Dock the pastry with a fork, before placing into the fridge whilst you wait for the oven to heat up.  

Line your pastry case with a cartouche (baking paper) and top with baking beans or dried chickpeas. Bake for 15 minutes, until a lovely golden colour. Remove the baking paper and beans then return to the oven for 5 minutes. Remove again, brush with the beaten egg, filling any gaps and then return for another 5 minutes.  

*Reduce the oven temperature to 110*c.  

To make the filling, zest your limes and place to one side. Cut the zested limes in half and squeeze the juice into a small saucepan along with the sugar. Place over a low flame and bring to the boil. Pour the syrup into a bowl, add the lime zest and allow to infuse for 5 minutes before straining. In the meantime clean the saucepan before adding the cream and placing back onto the heat. Heat the cream until just before boiling. 

Turn cream off.  

In a large bowl whisk your eggs thoroughly. slowly whisk in the cream then sugar syrup a little at a time until all combined.  

Sieve one last time, before carefully pouring into the blind baked pastry cases.  

Return to the oven and cook for 30 minutes or until they have a slight wobble. Remove and cool before enjoying. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
B our Resident chief Mike vander Elsen is with us.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Now, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I got a few limes have you lying around?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
I can tell you that.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
So it's not just a lemon overload that you're dealing with.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
You a lime overload as well, and orange overload.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Brilliant, brilliant.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I need to come. I need one plant, two under trees.
Why why?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I don't know, Actually, Mike, I can't answer that for you,
but it does give you a wonderful farm lime tart.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
It's it's a there is something lime, lemon, grapefruit, and
those lovely thin, crusty cases with the beautiful custard that's
been cooked on a low temperature. They are a thing
of beauty, and if you master them, they are something
that is worthy of any restaurant serving up anywhere in

(01:10):
the world.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
They are a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I get slightly concerned when you say if you
can or when.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
You master them, Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Implins a certain amount of technique.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
At a little bit. So I'll run through the recipe.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
It's quite a long one, so maybe I'll just jump
sweet crust pastry or short crust pastry. Roll that out.
You're looking at it about to be two to three
mil thick. Line a thin so that's probably the first part.
Is a thin flank case or a thin tart case.
So what I mean by thin is the height of it.

(01:47):
You want it to be no higher than two centimeters.
So head out to your kitchen store and try and
find a real thin casing. So line that first, and
then you turn your other onto one hundred and eighty degrees.
And you've got to blind bake this pastry. So line
it with baking paper and then put a weight, whether
it's baking bead or chickpeas or rice. Bake that on

(02:09):
one eighty for fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, pull the
casing out, remove the paper and the beads, and then
fire the case back into the oven for another five minutes.
That hardens it. After that, pull the case back out again.
Take an egg, just lightly beat that and then with
the pastry brush just pastry or just brush the inside

(02:30):
of that casing, and then fire your case back in
again for another five minutes. And what that egg does
is it does two things. It sells up any sort
of micro holes that might be in that case. But
it also puts in a nice little lining so that
when you're baking your custard, it keeps the pastry nice
and crispy. So that's probably number one. Then number two

(02:51):
is turn your oven down at that point to one
hundred and ten degrees, and then I've got the recipe
here for the actual filling itself or for the custard,
so just follow that recipe through. And then probably tip
number three is when you go to pour your custard
into your casing, have your case already sitting in the oven,
pull the oven rack out, pour in your your lime

(03:15):
or lemon filling, and then just slowly slide it back
into the oven because you want it fill to the
absolute brim of that case, and then fire that back
in one hundred and ten degrees. That's going to take
thirty minutes to cook. After thirty minutes, you can pull
it back out and then just let that cool down.
And that that is the essence to making a tart

(03:37):
is lining the case, blind, baking the case, brushing the
case with an egg wash, and then cooking the custard
on a super low temperture of one hundred and ten degrees.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Okay, and then when the tart's cool, you can get
the brew Lay torch on it right.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Ooh, stole it.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
You want to go super fancy, you can get a
little bit of caster sugar or ice and sugar either
eider and just sip a little bit over the top
or just sprink a little bit over the top, use
a brew Ley torch.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
And then burn the top of it, and then you kind.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Of get that brew lay very very light brulay sort
of crap to the top of that lemon tart.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
And you can make this with lime, lemon, grapefruit.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yep, any, etcetera. We've got a luncheon coming up at
the school on Wednesday. No on Sunday. Sorry, we're making
what are we making? We're making lemon tarts for that.
And then I'll just make a little Italian merangue, and
so I'll serve a decent wedge of the lime tart
or lemon tart will be, and then pipe up a
little bit of the Italian merangue on top of it,

(04:41):
and then you burn it with a brew Lay torch.
Because what you don't want to serve with a lemon
tart is something that's overly sweet, because then it will
just become over the top. So something that's like a
tellimerangue that's got that burnt element to it, because that's
introducing bitterness into it.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
If we have a bit of a wind come through
and your limes and your lemons fall off the tree,
where do you store them.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
We've got a chiller and we just stack them up
and crates and just store them in the in the chiller, so.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
For it they will last. They don't last forever, and
the chiller.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Once one goes moldy, you're gonna be careful because sends
the rest of them MOLDI but you'll probably get two
months out of them, three months if you look after them.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
All right, Okay, they're doing a little bit better than
my lemons that came up for a recent and a
recent guest.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Thank you so much, Mike, appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks. They'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.