I recently made two types of berry curds. A sugar free mixed berry curd and a strawberry curd. They are wonderful as fillings for cakes and tarts! They are so pretty, festive and they taste amazing! Today I opted for mini fruit tarts!
Fruit tarts have always been my favorite little treats and I am so happy that I can make these keto and low carb friendly as well as gluten free!
The tart shells are made with my keto almond flour pastry dough. I will link it right below for your reference. I had a mini muffin pan and used those to press the dough into the little wells and bake them. I also lined them with melted chocolate for extra decadence.
https://onxeniastreet.com/2020/11/08/almond-flour-pastry-dough/
Ingredients for the tart shells:
1 cup almond flour
1/3 cup coconut flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 cup cream cheese
4 tbsp cold butter
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
lemon zest
1 egg
Here is the link for the mixed berry curd. I used the exact same directions for the strawberry curd. Note that because when the strawberry curd is cooked it is not a lively pink as you would expect, but rather a dull peach color, I did add two drops of red food coloring and two fucshia food coloring to brighten up the color. Raspberries would actually naturally give you that bright pink color all on their own.
https://onxeniastreet.com/2020/12/23/mixed-berry-curd/
Ingredients for the curd:
2 cups of your choice of berries (I used frozen)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 piece of lemon rind
2 tbsp water
1/8 tsp of pure powdered monk fruit
1 tbsp yacon syurp
( OR 1/4 cup of preferred sweetener if you do not use the two above sweeteners)
3 eggs (room temperature)
Directions:
Note that the pastry dough will give you 24 tart shells, which is usually the size of a mini muffin pan. If you make one type of curd you will have enough for the 24 tarts. If you decide on two types of curds like I did, then you will either have leftover curd that you can spread on anything from scones to toast, or you can double the pastry dough recipe and create 48 tarts.
You can make the curd filling and the pastry dough earlier in the week for your convenience. I actually started out with the curds two days before, partly because I had no idea how I wanted to use them. Once you make your curd of choice, you will leave it in the fridge overnight to continue to thicken and cool down.
Now you want to make your pastry dough. Follow the link I posted above. Normally you would place it in the fridge (like all other pastry doughs) so that you can roll it out. I did not even bother with that! Instead I took small pieces of the dough and pressed into the wells of a greased mini muffin pan. I then poked a few holes in the dough so that they would not puff up during baking. Then I stored it in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
Next I set the oven to 400 F. Once the oven was hot I baked the tart shells for 30 minutes until they were golden brown. Because I was not baking the filling in the tart shell, I fully baked the shells. Remove them from the pan after a few minutes and allow them to cool on a cooling rack.
I chose to line the inside of my tarts with two types of sugar free chocolate, white and a blend of milk/dark. Melt your chocolate on a double boiler. I am not that fancy, so I place a ceramic bowl over a small sauce pan and it does the trick!
The white chocolate shells are for the mixed berry curd and the chocolate shells for the strawberry.
Fill the tart shells with chocolate to cover the surface on the inside and dipp the rims of the tart shells to coat. Place those in the fridge to cool and solidify completely.
Now you are ready to spoon in your curd. Place a berry on top and serve! Keep them covered in the refrigerator.
Kali Oreksi!
on xenia street 