I'm all about experimenting when I cook and I love to find new ways to use my homemade chutneys, jellies and jams...and curds! It's exciting times in the studio as I am sharing space with some interesting and creative people as seen in the above video - Aimee, Lucia and Sam. I mentioned to one of said interesting people, Aimee, that I really fancied making...and eating...a rhubarb tart. It wasn't until later on in the evening that I realised I didn't have enough butter to make the pastry. I think I need to stop right now and say that this NEVER happens as I adore and believe in butter. This is mainly as I've been taking a bit of a break since Christmas and I always have kilos of butter in the fridge to satisfy lemon curd orders. Back to tonight's tart, I was feeling a bit lazy and couldn't face popping to the shops when it occurred to me that I had a half pound kilner jar of lemon curd in the fridge and that essentially there was a lot of butter in there. So I decided to make an alternative pastry with lemon curd binding it together rather than butter. For the pastry I used:
100g of rice flour
50g of plain flour
50g of strong brown flour
100ml of lemon curd
4tbsp of water
I blended them all together and left it to sit and rest in the fridge for about half an hour.
I then lightly dusted the pastry, board and rolling pin and rolled the pastry to about a half a centimetre in thickness and placed in on a dish that I had lightly dusted with rice flour. I like using rice flour in pastries as I think it gives it a lighter texture. I then lightly pressed the pastry into place and used a fork to flute the pastry.
I put about four tablespoons of lemon curd and spread this over the pastry. I then took four tablespoons of Smy rhubarb curd and gently layered that on top of the lemon curd. I then repeated another layer of about four tablespoons of lemon curd and arranged rhubarb segments in the curd layers.
Then I popped the tart into an oven that had been preheated to 180℃ for half-an-hour and then I left it to cool.
The tart was light and tangy and proved a perfect Friday afternoon treat for the studio. Rhubarb season is just about to kick off and it's one of my favourite ingredients and you can expect rhubarb chutney, rhubarb curd and rhubarb and ginger jam to all be back in stock shortly. You can also expect more tasting videos this year and lots of new and exciting flavours and recipes.
and remember...
