White Chocolate and Lemon Tartlets

I love lemon meringue or even anything for that matter with lemon added to it. The taste experience of sweet and tarty is my favourite. When a clients asked me to make something with chocolate for her husband which also enjoys lemon desserts, I thought of pairing white creamy chocolate with lemon. Simple and quite quick to make as well. You may use ready made tart cases or follow my recipe on shortcrust pastry below.

White Chocolate Lemon Tartlets

Preparation time: 1 hour

Baking time 20 minutes

YIELD: 22cm / 9-inch tart / 12 x 7cm Tartlets

Patè Sucrèe (Sweet Shortcrust Pastry)

Ingredients

200g Plain Cake Flour

Pinch of Salt

75g   Castor Sugar

75g Butter, diced, room temperature

2 Egg yolks

½ tsp Vanilla Essence

2-3 Tbsp Iced Water

Method

1.     Sift the flour, sugar, salt onto a clean workspace. Make a well in the middle.

2.     Put the butter, egg yolks and vanilla essence into the well.

3.     Using the fingers of your one hand, peck the eggs and butter together until the mixture resembles creamy scrambled eggs. 

4.     Flick the flour over the egg mixture and chop it through with a palette knife or pastry scraper until it is almost mixed through but still look lumpy.

5.     Sprinkle with the water and chop again.

6.     Bring together with your hands. Knead lightly into a ball, then flatten slightly.

7.     Wrap in Clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes before using it. Let return to room temperature before rolling.

White Chocolate Ganache

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Resting time: 1 Hour in the fridge, 2 Hours on the counter

Yield: 500ml

Ingredients:

250 ml Fresh Cream

500 g Chopped White Chocolate

Zest of 1 Lemon and some for decoration

Method:

1. Add the cream to a stainless steel bowl, to be placed onto a saucepan with water. This will create a double boiler, which makes it safer for chocolate to melt.

2. Heat the cream to very warm, but not boiling.

3. Add the chocolate pieces to the cream at once and while stirring slowly, allowing the chocolate to melt, then forming a smooth chocolate sauce.

4. Zest one lemon and with a knife, chop the lemon rind finer. Scrape some of the zest into the white chocolate and stir well.

5. Set the ganache aside on the counter to cool down for two hours or in the fridge for one hour.

6. It is very important that the ganache should be completely cold or even better, chilled before it being whipped.

7. With an electrical beater, whip up the ganache until a chocolate mousse consistency.

8. Fill each small tartlets with ganache, level them off with a pallet knife and wipe down any access on the sides with a dry paper towel.

9. Pipe the excess ganache into a piping bag and pipe ribbons on top. (Optional to use is whipped cream).

10. Sprinkle the last of the zest over the top of tartlets before it goes into the fridge to cool for 30 minutes.