“It’s what a neenish tart wants to be when it grows up.”

That was my husband’s assessment of the little tarts I made last week. They’re worth a try. If you make the Nutella and the lemon curd ahead of time, they’re quick to whip out.

You’ll need:

1 recipe homemade Nutella
1 recipe lemon curd (see below)
1 recipe pie dough (enough for a double crust; my recipe is below)
Dark chocolate for decorating

Lemon curd

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and lemon zest in a saucepan. Add the lemon juice and butter. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the butter is melted. Continue to cook, still whisking, until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla, pour into a jar or covered crock, and refrigerate.

Pie dough

1 1/4 cups wholemeal flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
125 g cold butter
125 g Olivani
5 – 8 Tbs ice water

Whisk together the flours and salt. Cut the butter and Olivani into the flour mixture until the largest pieces are the size of peas. Sprinkle the water over the mixture and combine with a fork until evenly moist. Knead in the bowl just enough to form the dough into a cohesive ball. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour before rolling out.

To assemble the tarts:

Roll out pie dough quite thin. Cut into 10 cm rounds with a cookie or biscuit cutter. Line cupcake tins with the rounds of dough. Blind bake for 20 minutes at 200ºC (400ºF). (If you don’t want your dough to slump while baking, fill each tart with pie weights for the first 15 minutes of baking, then remove them for the final 5 minutes.)

Remove the tarts from the tins and, while they are still hot, press a teaspoon or so of Nutella into the bottom of each one. The heat from the crust will soften the Nutella and help it spread across the bottom nicely. 

When fully cool, fill the tarts with lemon curd. Melt a small quantity of dark chocolate and pipe chocolate squiggles onto the top.

These tarts should be kept refrigerated, if they last long enough to make it to the refrigerator.