Fresh.

It’s a finicky one, Maya.
Do you have a full free day and want therapy by cooking?

Like most of my recipes, this starts with something I want to get rid off: a grapefruit.
Time: 30min for crust, 1h for curd , at least 6h for cooling (better overnight) and 30min for decorating.

Start with the crust - try to remember this easy recipe since this is the crust you can use for any tarts, big or small.
And if you take out the sugar, you can use it for empanadas too.

Ingredients:
125g flour (I used wholegrain, looks awful)
100g butter (a stick)
Pinch of salt
One spoon powdered sugar
1 egg

  1. Put the flour, sugar, salt in a bowl and add slices of butter or just grate the butter in big pieces.
    Use your fingers to rub the flour into the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs

  2. Add the egg and rub the dough until you can form a ball.

  3. Wrap it with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 30min

  4. That's one way - another way is to just use the dough ball and roll it out into a sheet slightly bigger than the tin

  5. You're supposed to prick the base with a fork.

  6. After you fit it into the tin, cover the pastry with parchment paper, then fill with rice or dried beans to weigh it down. The purpose of these weights is to prevent the base from puffing up and the sides from collapsing inwards. Bake at 390°F for 20 minutes

dough, roller
tart tin, 22cm diameter

If you need to buy the main ingredients (the rest you should have):

After you baked the crust, let it cool down and start on the grapefruit curd

350ml of any juice squeezed from any fruit (I used grapefruit 150g, orange 80g and carrot and apple 120g)
Lemon zest from one lemon
Corn starch: 3 spoons
Sugar: 140g
3 egg yolks (don’t throw away the whites, we'll use them for meringue)
85g butter

  1. In retrospect, you should start by just mixing the sugar and the juice until the sugar dissolves completely. This tart will be grainy if the sugar doesn’t dissolve before you cook because over fire it might crystallize unevenly.

  2. Second step: You can start cooking it over a medium fire

  3. Add the eggs and corn starch

  4. Add the butter

  5. Stir constantly until your curd thickens and holds its shape and it visibly mounds up when dropped.

  6. Pour the warm lemon curd (though a strainer - this is optional) into a bowl (or directly into the tart shell).

Last part is your meringue

the 3 egg whites
and 180g sugar

Mix the egg whites on highest speed until you have a thick foam (5 min).

Add the sugar gradually and keep mixing until it dissolves, at least 10 minutes - if you dip your pinkie in it, you shouldn’t feel any sugar grains.

You have to refrigerate it overnight otherwise the curd will be too liquidy when you cut it.
Up to you how to decorate it - you need 3 complementary colors - I wanted a pink, white and green (from powdered pistachios on top).
I clearly got what I wanted.

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