Citrus Tarts

Elegant little boats filled with lemon lime curd to celebrate my new tart ring! # 330: Citrus Tarts

Future baking project idea: actually make little tart boats with a candy mast and sugar sails!

These pointed oval-shaped tart rings are called calisson tart rings, after the 15th century French almond candy of the same shape. Which sound amazing, by the way! Basically marzipan with orange blossom water, topped with royal icing. File that away from your next bar trivia night.

Have to admit, this was nowhere near my first guess. I definitely thought calisson was a French word that meant something cute that described the shape, like oval or diamond (I took Spanish in high school, don’t @ me). And then when I struck out with that theory, I decided it must be the name of whoever started using the shape in the pastry world. C’est la vie.

I also filled a few with dark chocolate ganache and guava pastry cream, topped with cacao nibs. Because chocolate!

Have you ever used a perforated tart ring before? They leave teeny tiny dots along the walls of the tart, but supposedly they help release steam more efficiently, resulting in a crisper shell.

The line up for my trusty sweet crust recipe.

The stand mixer scoffs at small batch bakes but the hand mixer loves it’s moment in the sun.

Finished out by hand so as not to over mix it.

So much potential!

My understanding with tart rings is that you line the sides and then punch out the bottom of the tart like a cookie cutter. It’s super smart in concept, but in reality it squishes the sides a bit when you get to the cookie cutter phase. And I did end up with one shell where the sides didn’t fully adhere to the base (grump.) Clearly just have to practice more to get it right! Darn, more tarts…

Why is it so cute??

Ok, so definitely need more practice. And more patience, since only having one tart ring means I have to wait until it had fully cooled before lining the next one. Which as you can see, I didn’t do consistently and ended up with some melty sides. Good thing we’ve got whipped cream to cover all the shaky edges!