Lime Tart

I hope you’ll forgive me if I post another recipe with limes. Does it help if I mention that there are no further lime recipes for a while? Does it help if I say this one is delicious? Does it help if I invite you over for some?

You might remember that in last week’s recipe I was trying to use up some cornmeal. I had gotten some limes for that recipe, and now I had a bunch of limes. So I found another recipe to use up the limes. Yeah, I know this could turn into a never-ending story, but thankfully it stops with this. (This time at least. 🙂 )

You might notice that there’s no picture of the ingredients this time. Well, I wasn’t sure if the limes were actually any good still. So I had to cut them open and check them out and by that point a picture seemed already too late. Actually, my wife took care of the limes. She zested and juiced them while I was putting the crust together. Thanks hon!

If you’re following along with the recipe, I want to point out a few things. I forgot to put the vanilla in the crust. Oops! Juicing 4 limes made just enough for a 1/2 cup of juice. Also they were not key limes, just regular limes. I didn’t use an egg in the crust.

I used my friendly neighborhood kitchen helper, the KitchenAid, twice for this recipe. The first kitchenaiding (is that a word?) was making the crust. Mixing it together using the KitchenAid was a snap.

However, I have to come clean about something. I cheated on putting the crust together. I don’t have a tart pan, so I used a cake dish (9″ round). And rather than roll out the crust, especially if it was going to be a crumbly mess like the recipe suggested, I grabbed the cake dish and just dumped the dough in. I pressed it all along the bottom. Then I pulled some of the excess out and smooshed it up the sides. I tried to keep it from being too thick along the edge, which is an issue I have when making crusts this way. It wasn’t perfectly flat, but it was okay. I put it in the fridge to chill.

After it chilled, I sprayed cooking spray onto a piece of foil and covered the dough. I weighed it down with pie weights. After the first 20 minutes baking, it looked super poofy and like it was baking unevenly. (I guess that’s why you shouldn’t do it the way I did.) I pricked it with a fork and put it back in for another 20 minutes. It looked very done at that point, so I took it out. Unevenly done, but done. I let it cool.

As it was baking, I made the filling. The zest and juice were already done. I minced the zest with the sugar in the food processor. As I was doing so, what can only be described as lime scented sugar dust wafted up from it. And in the end it turned into sugary lime powder. Yum!

The second kitchenaiding (I figure if I keep using it as a word it might catch on) was for mixing up all the ingredients for the filling. Easy peasy. Then I put the filling in a saucepan. I had thought it was all combined, but as I was pouring it, I realized it wasn’t. At that point, all I could do was hope that it would combine more while heating. I heated it up a bit different than the directions. It took a total of 12 minutes on medium heat. I was concerned that it wasn’t thick enough, so that’s why I cooked it for a longer time and at a higher heat. Eventually it thickened. (Maybe it needed the extra time and heat because it wasn’t quite combined at the start?)

The crust was cool-ish when I poured in the filling. I let it set, and I did the jiggle test to confirm. We weren’t quite ready for it, so I put it in the fridge till we were. It smelled lovely all through the making of it: the zesting and juicing, the processing, the mixing, the heating, etc.

When it got to dessert time, it was hard to cut it. Mainly because it’s a non-stick pan, and I don’t want to ruin it. I need to get something to cut on it, as I keep having this issue. I ended up using two different spatulas and a plastic knife. Eventually I was able to cut it. The second piece was easier, as is usually the case.

It was a bit of a mess. Maybe it hadn’t really thickened enough, as it was kinda sloppy and all over the place. And even though I had tried to work against it, the crust had bunched up at the edge. I think next time I should make a tart crust properly, or if I’m going to do it this way, I need to adjust my technique by either leaving it lighter around the edge, or starting from the edge and working my way in.

Even with all of the mess and such, it was still really good. There is a nice taste and texture to the crust. Thankfully, it didn’t taste overcooked. The lime filling was nice and limey, which is to say tart and sweet.

Coincidentally, my wife’s anosmia had kicked in again. You can read more about it here. That time I made a lemon based dessert which she could taste. I didn’t realize it had really kicked in again when I made this, but it was a similar situation. She couldn’t smell it, but she could taste the citrus and the sweet.

I was hoping that after a whole day in the fridge the filing would firm up more. Well, I can confirm that on the second day, it had firmed up a bit and was much more solid. And still delicious. And I can’t say for sure that it kept getting better day after day, but one taster a few days later said it was one of the best things she’s ever had.

Now, I could go the punny route and say it was simply sublime. Or I could go the non-poetic route and say it was tasty. Or I could just suggest that you all try it for yourselves and tell me what you think of it. I think I’ll go the last route. So I look forward to hearing how it was for you.

Recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Lime Cornmeal Cookies

Someone deserves a prize for coming up with the idea of using cornmeal in cookies. I’m not talking Nobel Peace Prize level of prize, but something would be nice. It was an excellent idea, and it surely wasn’t mine. I don’t think I would have even tried it if not for the proliferation of recipes I found. (Who knew there were so many?) I just wanted to make something with cornmeal, as I had wanted to use up the cornmeal I had gotten for the chess pie. In that search, I practically ran headfirst into this recipe. Figuratively, of course. Spoiler alert: it turned out to be an excellent cookie, but it didn’t use up that much cornmeal.

I had walked out the door to go grocery shopping without having looked recently at the recipe, and without having it with me. Silly me. I knew I needed limes, but not how many. I got a bag of organic limes, and I figured I could use the rest another time if needed. Actually, while making it, before even tasting them my wife suggested I make a double recipe. In retrospect it would have been a good idea, but I wanted to try them out once first. I only ended up using two limes, but that’s okay. (I wonder what I’ll do with the rest of the limes?)

I didn’t have eggs handy, and I didn’t want to get any just for this so I used aquafaba. It’s an egg substitute, and it’s really just the liquid left from a can of beans. It works great, it doesn’t taste like beans in the final product, and you would never know it’s in there. (You can read more about my previous adventures with aquafaba here.) And, as a special bonus, we ended up using the beans for dinner that night as well. (We made a slightly modified version of the White Bean Fritters recipe here.) Yay planning! Yay synchronicity!

So I zested and squeezed one lime at the beginning of the recipe. I got just about 2 tbsps zest and plenty of juice. I used 1 tbsp zest in the recipe and the other almost tbsp for the sugar mix for rolling. I used 1 tbsp juice as needed and saved the rest for later.

It was easy to put together. I chilled the dough right in the mixing bowl. It took some finagling to get the dough into a 12 inch roll. I wrapped it up in wax paper and kept squeezing, squishing, and measuring until I got it to the right size. It wasn’t exactly round, but it was close enough. I wrapped plastic wrap around the wax paper.

I had started it early in the day as it needed to rest in the fridge for a while (1 hour and then 8 more hours). I almost put it in the freezer for less time or took it out sooner, but I ended up getting caught up in other stuff so I wasn’t ready for it until the full time frame had passed anyway.

After its time chilling, I took it out of the fridge. I then mixed up the sugar and reserved zest. It didn’t seem like a lot. I removed the plastic wrap and unrolled the wax paper. I poured the sugar mix out and rolled the dough in it, but since it wasn’t quite round, it needed some assistance. I ended up scooping up the sugar mix with my hands and pouring it over the dough. Then I patted it in, rotated the dough, and repeated. It turns out it was a lot. Plenty in fact.

With the dough all ready, I started cutting slices. I had an idea of how big they should be after making the world peace cookies. It was a pretty similar setup all around.

The first round I baked for about 10 minutes. They didn’t seem quite done, so I baked them for another 30 seconds or so. That first round might have been a tad bit undercooked. The second round got a tad bit overcooked, as I got caught up in something right when I should have taken them out. The third round was better (spot on, I think) which was about 11 minutes. Despite the differences in baking times, they were all good in the end.

I let them cool, and I made the glaze. I zested another lime and juiced it. I used up all the zest as the recipe asked for, but between that lime and the juice I had left from the first one, there was plenty of juice. I used 3 tbsps plus a few more tsps to get it to the right consistency.

I put wax paper under the cooling rack and spooned the glaze on. The first few got maybe a bit too much, which left not quite as much for the last few, but they all got covered in the end. A little uneven but okay. I’m glad I put down wax paper as it was a big ol’ mess underneath. I let them cool.

After they cooled, we tried them. Wow. The lime was awesome. They have a nice texture, a little crunchy but still chewy. You can taste the cornmeal, and it works very well. The cookie is not super sweet, but the glaze is pretty sweet. They go well together. With the lime in the cookie, surrounding the cookie, and in the glaze, if you don’t like lime, this is not the right cookie for you. I wasn’t expecting these to be anything special, so I was pleasantly surprised. They were really good.

The next day, after sitting in the fridge overnight, the glaze was much less sticky. Since that made it easier to travel with them, I decided to bring some in to work. Everyone at work really enjoyed them. One person referred to them as “crack”. After tasting one and enjoying it immensely, someone who was visiting from another office was very jealous upon finding out that I made baked goods regularly. There was some discussion again about stealing me for that office.

So I would highly recommend these. They’re very good. And they’re easy, even with the lime zesting and juicing. The glaze is a little sweet, so if you want something less sweet, you could probably put in less sugar. But they’re very good as is. Do you have any good recipes with lime to share? I’d love to hear them!

Recipe courtesy of Half Baked.