Tarte aux Clémentines et au Grand Marnier

Tarte aux Clémentines et au Grand Marnier

One of my anonymous readers gave me the idea to make a Tart using clementines today. We both prefer the less acidic taste of this agrume and I did have a bag of clementines in the fridge waiting to be consumed. The Tarte aux Clémentines et au Grand Marnier turned out really well. It was a relief as I had made modifications to my Lemon Tart recipe and wasn't too sure how it would turn out.

One last slice for the next day

Tarte aux Clémentines at au Grand Marnier :

Puff pastry or Sweetcrust pastry
130g Sugar
3 Eggs

50g Butter (melted)

40g Maizena (cornstarch)

2-3 Tbsp Grand Marnier (orange liquor)

5-7 Clémentines (5 for juice, 2 for the flesh - optional)

1/2 Lemon

I have decided to switch to puff pastry for my base as I have been thinking of the Portuguese Egg Tarts that I used to make very often a few years ago. Plus you get good ready-made ones nowadays so that saved me some trouble.

Beat sugar and eggs till creamy in a big bowl, add in the Grand Marnier. In another container, mix the melted butter, juice from 5 clémentines and half a lemon, the zest from one clémentine, whatever pulp you can get from them all and the cornstarch that has been dissolved in 2-3 Tbsps of water. Pour the juice mixture into the egg mixture and mix well.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Fit the puff pastry into a mould. If you want a crusty tart, bake the base solo for 5-10 minutes. Take it out, and if you wish, fill up with pieces of peeled clementines before filling it with the clementine custard.

Bake in the lower part of the oven for 40 minutes. After about 15 minutes, the top of the custard may start to darken. Cover with aluminium foil and continue to bake for the remaining time.

Let it cool slightly before eating to allow the custard to settle and become firmer. It's best eaten warm though.

We were late for school this morning as we couldn't get out of the house. The gate still couldn't be opened automatically. But I've been reasonably productive today, managing to change most of the games in the kids' Nintendo DS cartridges. To think that I used to pay someone a small fortune to do it when it's really a simple drag and drop operation. We used to have to manage more than a dozen cartridges and spend time counting/looking for them, and when you have 3 kids, it quickly became a nightmare. Plus what do you do if they all want to play Mario at the same time?