Lemon and almond tarts

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I've invited an old school friend for tea tomorrow, so wanted to make something nice for her.

Found this recipe in one of my Mum's old cookery books, and as I had my dil here this afternoon, and she's doing a cake decorating class, they seemed just the thing. I've changed the ozs into grams. and it worked fine.

Makes 12 little tarts
212 g packet shortcrust pastry [I used Just Rol}
50g butter
50g caster sugar
1 large egg
59g ground almonds
drop of almond essence [not the almond flavouring]
1 rounded tbspn sr flour
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
1 tspn lemon juice [I put in a bit more as I wanted them to be lemony]
icing:
150g icing sugar
drop lemon food colouring
lemon juice

Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface,and then cut out 12 rounds with a cutter to fit a bun tin.
Cream the butter and sugar then beat in the egg and ground almonds.
Stir in the almond essence, flour, lemon rind and juice.
Divide this evenly between the pastry cases and bake for 20-25 mins till the sponge is golden and the pastry is cooked.
Cool on a wire rack.
Icing:
Sift 125g of the icing sugar into a bowl and mix with enough cold water to make a thick icing.
Spread over the tarts and allow to set. Leave any left over icing in the bowl.
Add the rest of the icing sugar [25g] too the bowl and mix in a little colouring and enough lemon juice to make a thick icing.
Fill a small icing bag and pipe a lattice on top of each cake. Leave to set.


There's no real need to do the yellow piping - any decoration would do, but I had my dil to do it for me!

The glass plate they're on is one of my Grandmother's. I'd forgotten all about her glass plates till I saw a similar one in a local shop, so I hunted out the box in the attic.

Comments

Rhyleysgranny said…
These look just lovely. My mother used to make something similar and for some obscure reason were called cheese cakes although there was not a scrap of cheese involved. I must make these. They look so good
24/6/11 11:43 am
Suelle said…
What a great flavour combination. I think the yellow decoration finishes them off perfectly.
24/6/11 1:00 pm
Snowy said…
Thank you both for your kind comments.
Brenda, my Mum used to make little Welsh cheese cakes which were pastry, a layer of jam and then sponge on top. Think there was cheese in them originally.
I like the yellow too, Suelle. Glad I had my dil here!
25/6/11 3:05 am
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