I had been gifted an enormous bag of limes by a friend from a tree on his property so this week I decided to go all-tropical in chilly Sydney and made a Lime and Coconut Tart.
My go to pastry is our Revenge Gluten-Free Shortcrust Pastry which is extremely easy to work with and doesn’t have any of the tell tale grittiness of many gluten-free pastries.
It bakes to a beautiful golden colour with a perfectly crisp finish. The raw dough can be stored in the fridge for up to a week before rolling it out and, once it’s lining its tart tin, can be frozen for up to a couple of months and blind baked straight from the freezer.
To top all that off, any left over pastry can be cut into biscuit shapes, baked and sandwiched with your favourite filling, or iced to have with a cuppa. Perfect.
Fill a blind baked Revenge Gluten-Free Shortcrust tart case with any filling you fancy. Go mad.
My lime and coconut filling has a luxurious, velvety texture and is sweet and tart at the same time. It is made with coconut cream and desiccated coconut but if you’re not keen on the texture of desiccated coconut you can leave it out altogether.
To keep my imaginary tropical moment going, I garnished my tart with toasted shredded coconut but it is just as lovely left plain or with the edges dusted with icing sugar.
Great dollops of whipped cream essential.
Rosie
LIME AND COCONUT TART
Serves 10
Pastry
125 gm white rice flour
65 gm almond meal
60 gm cornflour
85 gm caster sugar
65 gm unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 whole egg
1 pinch salt
Place dry ingredients into a food processor and process for a couple of seconds to combine. Add cold butter cubes and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg and process until the pastry comes together into a ball. You may need to add some iced water, a teaspoon at a time
Place pastry onto plastic wrap and pat into a disc approximately 1cm thick. Refrigerate for an hour. (Pastry will keep in the fridge for a least a week).
Pre-heat oven to 160°C.
Remove pastry from the fridge and knead until it is smooth and pliable. Between two pieces of baking paper, roll pastry out to a thickness of approximately 3mm. Line a 28cm loose bottom tart tin with the pastry and return to the fridge until quite firm. Blind bake.
Blind Baking
Line your pastry lined tin with foil, gently pressing well into the corners. Fill with baking weights, pushing them up the sides of the shell. (Raw rice, dried beans or purchased pastry weights all work equally well.) Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully remove the foil and baking weights. Return the tart shell to the oven for a further 7-10 minutes until light golden brown.
For this recipe, time the blind baking so that you can pour the warm filling into the hot tart shell.
Lime Coconut Filling
6 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
300 gm caster sugar
200 ml coconut cream
300 ml lime juice
250 gm pure cream
75 gm desiccated coconut
20 gm shredded coconut, toasted, to garnish
Icing sugar, to garnish
Reduce oven temperature to 150°C
Whisk eggs, egg yolks and sugar together, until combined, in a bowl set over a bowl of warm water and set aside, whisking occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.
Stir in the cream and coconut cream.
Bring the lime juice to the boil and add to the mixture. Pass through a sieve.
Stir in the desiccated coconut.
Carefully pour the warm filling into the hot tart case.
Bake at 150°C for 20-30 minutes or until the edges are firming up but the centre is still slightly wobbly. The filling will firm up as it cools. If you over cook it the filling will crack as it cools.
Garnish with toasted shredded coconut and icing sugar.