All Easy Recipes. Cook all that you can cook. Almond Tarts
(Maids Of Honor)
 
What You Need:            (To Make: about 18 tarts)
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  • 2 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 5 tablespoons flour
  • Short-crust pastry
  • 2 egg yolks
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ cup blanched almonds, pulverized in a blender or with a nut grinder or a mortar and pestle
  • 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream

  • How To Cook:
    1. Preheat the oven to 400°. With a pastry brush and the 2 tablespoons of softened butter, coat the inside surfaces of 2 medium-sized 12-cup muffin tins (each cup should be about 2½ inches across at the top).

    2. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of the flour into the tins, tipping them to coat the bottoms and sides of the cups evenly. Then invert the tins and rap them sharply on a table to remove the excess flour.

    3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the short-crust pastry into a circle about ¼ inch thick, and with a cookie cutter or the rim of a glass, cut it into 3-inch rounds. Gather the scraps together into a ball, roll it out into another circle, and cut out rounds as before.

    4. Gently fit the rounds into the cups of the muffin tins, pushing the pastry firmly into the sides. The pastry shells will be about 1 inch deep, and will not fill the cups completely.

    5. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk to break them up. Then beat in the sugar, almonds, lemon peel and the remaining tablespoon of flour.

    6. Slowly add the cream and beat until the mixture is smooth. Ladle about 1 tablespoon of the mixture into each of the pastry shells, filling them to within 1/8 inch of the top.

    7. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling is a light golden brown. Carefully remove the tarts from the tins and cool them to room temperature on cake racks. Maids of honor are traditionally served at afternoon tea.

    NOTE:
        In some parts of England, jam or bread crumbs are added to the filling, and it is not uncommon to find the tarts topped with two crossed strips of the pastry.

     
     
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