salted caramel and chocolate tarts, and strawberry and ganache tarts

When I made my mint and white chocolate mousse tart, I had way more chocolate crust than I needed, and I also happened to have a jar of salted caramel I’d made recently, and some strawberries. Naturally, the only thing to do was to make chocolate and strawberry ganache tarts, inspired by this tart from cupcakes and cashmere, and salted caramel and chocolate ganache tarts, which coincidentally were made on Masterchef later that night, does that make me a Masterchef? I hope so.

 

I made these tarts in miniature, because little food is cute, and I brought a couple to school the next day, much to my friends delight. I have since been asked to make one for a girl at school who said she’d pay for one, I’m not entirely sure what to do with this situation because I’d feel a bit stingy to make someone pay for one small tart, but if I bake her something, everyone else will want food too. Teenagers *sigh*.

 

lemon meringue tarts

I have never been sure what the difference is between tarts and pies. According to The Kitchn,
the humble pie (haha) is a sweet or savoury dish with a crust and a filling. It has a crisp flaky crust and is served straight out of the pie dish; it can have a top, a bottom or both. A tart, on the other hand, is cooked in a pan with a removable bottom or a pastry ring. Tarts don’t have a lid, and the pastry is usually firm but a bit crumbly, like a biscuit. Most people tend to describe this recipe as a pie, however I have decided that it is a tart because it is topped with meringue, not pastry, and the crust is biscuity and sweet, rather than flaky and crisp.

Eating one of these is like biting into a cloud. The meringue is very light and airy, and the lemon curd was so citrus flavoured that if not for the meringue, would have been overwhelming. I felt pretty smug after making these little tarts, as the contestants of The Great Australian Bake Off made lemon meringue pies last week, and unlike theirs, mine didn’t leak, weep or crack. Although one must remember that I spent a leisurely six hours making these whilst watching Teen Wolf, and they had only a couple of stressful hours to do it. The curd and meringue recipes are from here, and the crust recipe is from here.

mint and white chocolate mousse tart

This was the first tart I have ever made, and I was so pleased with the results. My mum was having friends over for dinner and cooking a recipe from the cookbook ‘Jerusalem’. Inspired by the Arabic theme of the meal, I decided to use mint, which is a popular flavour in Middle Eastern sweets. Although that’s about where the Arabic inspiration ends.