Lemon & Raspberry Tart with Almond Crust
This is a guest post by Naomi of Bakers Royale. Welcome Naomi!
For as long as I can remember, the kitchen has been my favorite place. Baking up sweet treats has always been something soothing and calming for me. Don’t get me wrong, there are crazy days when nothing I’m making or testing turns out right. Then there are days when I can’t remember if I added ¼ or ½ cup of something to a batter.
Those are the days that I have to remind myself to take a deep breath. Relax. Baking and cooking are an act of sharing and nurturing others and not an act of culinary acrobatics. It’s this sentiment that Aimée does so well in fostering here at Simple Bites. That said, I’m excited to be here as a guest and share a deliciously simple Valentine’s dessert.
This dessert is your classic lemon tart with a few tweaks. It’s easy to make and full of bright, fruity flavors. To keep things on the lighter side, I traded out a traditional tart crust for a graham cracker crust and threw in some crushed almonds for an added kick in flavor.
To assemble the tart filling, I used homemade lemon curd, but you can certainly buy lemon curd to cut down on the time. For an added twist, I layered the tart with some raspberry purée to give it some added punch and depth of flavor. This turned out to be even better since it lent itself to being a fine backdrop for adding a decorative Valentine’s touch.
Photo by Naomi
Lemon Raspberry Tarts
Yields: 6 4-inch individual tartelettes or one 10-inch tart pan.
Almond Graham Cracker Crust
- 20 graham crackers or 1 ¾ cups of graham cracker crumbs
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup almond slivers, toasted
- 7 tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Place graham crackers and almond slivers in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin until finely crushed. Alternatively place ingredients in a bowl and process until finely crushed.
- Place graham cracker and almond crumbs, sugar and melted butter into a bowl and mix to combine.
- Pour crumb/crust mixture into a 10-inch tart pan and press firmly down and all around the side wall edge until it is ¼ inch thick.
- Bake tart crust for about 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Raspberry Purée
- 1 ½ cups fresh raspberries or 1 cup frozen berries*
Instructions:
- Place raspberries in a food processor or blender and process until raspberries are puréed.
- Pour and push raspberry mixture through a fine mesh sieve to remove seeds.
Photo by Naomi
Lemon Curd
Head HERE to get the recipe and step-by-step instructions for homemade lemon curd, or use purchased lemon curd as suggested above.
Assembly
- Fill pre-baked and cooled tart shells with raspberry purée until the bottom is covered with 1/8 inch of purée.
- Start in the middle of the tart and spoon lemon curd onto the raspberry purée, letting a ring of raspberry puree form around the lemon curd.
- Use a toothpick and lightly drag small sweeping lines from the raspberry purée into the lemon curd.
- Chill until ready to serve. The tarts can be fully assembled 4 hours in advance.
A few notes
1. Pans: You can use any size tart pan that suits you. I used four 6-inch individual tart pans as well as six 1-½ inch tartlets.
2. Do Ahead:
- The crust can be made two days in advance and kept in a tightly sealed container and refrigerated.
- The curd and raspberry purée can be prepared up to 7 days in advance and kept refrigerated as well.
3. Shortcut: Use fresh raspberries instead of making raspberry purée. Make sure to cut them in half so that the lemon curd will easily cover them.
Tarts are highly adaptable, so you can fill them with just about anything. You can easily change out any of the components to suit your preference. Whatever you do or however you build your tart, have a fantastic day celebrating those you love on Valentine’s day.
Citrus or Chocolate? What is your preference?
I love that you used a graham cracker crust here (so easy) and of course lemon and raspberry are brilliant together.
What a beautiful dessert!!!
These are absolutely stunning! So refined! So elegant!! LOVELOVELOVE!!!
Just gorgeous! 🙂
This is beautiful and sounds delicious!
This is just beautiful!! Lemon is one of my favorite flavors.
I got totally distracted by the Fusionwood knife in the first picture…want. Then I got distracted dreaming of raspberries and lemon curd. Also want. Gorgeous, Naomi!
What a lovely tart and a fantastic use for lemon curd! Love the raspberry in here too. 🙂
So beautiful! I love lemons and raspberries together.
This looks absolutely delicious! I never make anything delicate like this. I’m starring this in my google reader, and hopefully I’ll get up the courage to try it.
Wow, so beautiful!
I too love raspberry and lemon together. A while back, made these raspberry and lemon bars:
http://eatlittleeatbig.blogspot.com/2011/01/recipe-for-raspberry-lemon-bars.html
Absolutely beautiful recipe and photographs. I need to make this one really soon.
Raspberry and lemon…..such a good flavor combination. I love the ring of raspberry around the lemon….give is such lovely color.
Chocolate. But the lemon curd looks lovely and even better with the raspberry
Stunning! These tarts look absolutely beautiful. 🙂
I love, love, love lemon desserts! I’m just trying to imagine how yummy yours are with the raspberry puree. Heavenly, I’m sure!
Oh my goodness, Naomi. Those tarts are unbelievably gorgeous. Thank you for such a brilliant idea.
The tarts look amazing, not to mention tasty. I am Definitely going to try them for Valentine’s dinner.
Lovely. I am now both puckering and drooling at the same time. I want this. I want this now.
Love all of Naomi’s desserts n this one’s no different! Lemon is my favorite flavor in dessert so you can imagine how good I must have felt to see this post 🙂
Beautiful and a wonderful combination of flavors!! What a wonderful way to incorporate the raspberry puree into the dessert – very excited to try this out!!
This looks lovely, and I think my husband and I are going to make it tomorrow. I have a question, though: I see the almonds in the list of ingredients, but not in the instructions. Maybe I’m just not seeing it, but can you say (again) how they fit into the crust?
These tarts are stunning. Lemon and raspberry are such the perfect pairing for these tarts. Love Naomi’s baking style & gorgeous photos!
Beautiful photos and the tart sounds delicious! Hubby is a lemony kind of guy while I prefer chocolate. I made a simple lemon tart last week and I am itching to try your version now 🙂
sounds and looks lovely! i’m a sucker for graham cracker crusts and lemon. saving this to my online cookbook (http://cookmarked.com) for safe keeping. 😉
What a beautiful recipe and presentation!! Great job ladies!
no me gustan nada las gasas, parece que es un ungüento en vez de una receta
This looks delicious and I can’t wait to make it! Can you please clarify where/how to use the almond slivers?
Thanks for sharing this great recipe! It looks absolutely spectacular.
I also run a food blog and will be featuring your recipe this afternoon.
I love lemon! I certainly don’t turn up my nose at chocolate, but given a choice? Lemon. These look wonderful! Thanks so much.
This is so pretty! And I love that you used graham crackers in the crust – it’s been ages since I’ve done a classic butter crust with graham crackers. Looking forward to trying this!