Lemon Cream Tartlets | Emma's 1st Baking Gig

Each year I volunteer to donate the desserts for the annual celebration dinner at The Sheffield Place, a facility that serves homeless mothers and their children.  (You can read about the past posts and desserts here.)  This year, since Emma has taken such an interest in baking, I decided to let her take the reins on this project.  We selected the menu together (I had to rein in some of her ambitions a bit... ) but I put her in charge of the baking, decorating and display.   

Robin's Egg Blue Enamelware Trays, $22

There were to be 40 guests at the dinner, so we decided to make 26 Lemon Tartlets and 26 Strawberry Macaron.  I'll save the Macaron recipe for another post - stay tuned for that.

For the tarts, we used store bought pie crust.  Emma would've preferred that we make "scratch" dough, but I wanted to make as little mess as possible in the kitchen since we were also tackling macaron in the same day.



All we did was roll it out a bit thinner than it came in the package, then cut it into circles that would fit into my Small Brown Paper Tart Pans.  We actually used a large ramekin as a cutter to cut out the circles and it worked great.  Then we pressed them into the pans and put them on a Large Baking Sheet, $10.  I should have lined the sheet with Parchment Paper, $10 because we had some drips of the filling on the pan that were a pain to scrape off.  I should know by know - always use parchment!

For the filling we used our favorite Creamy Lemon Pie filling - a recipe from my "Pops."   It is so easy and is just Sweetened Condensed Milk, Lemon Juice and Egg Yolks.  We baked them for about 25 minutes until the crusts were browned then let them cool.

We topped them with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, strawberries, mint and a pansy.

I couldn't resist taking photos of her desserts on these Enamelware Trays before we left - they make everything look sweet and pretty.

Resources : 

Robin's Egg Blue Enamelware Trays, $22

Disposable Tart Pans (we used the small, petite also available)

Large Baking Sheet, $10

Parchment Paper, $10 

Creamy Lemon Pie Recipe

Here is a look at our strawberry macarons - we love making these, but are still working the kinks out!  I'll share my tips when I feel like we've mastered it.

Proud Emma with her display at the Sheffield House.