Matcha Meringue Tarts

Matcha Meringue Tarts This was my second attempt at tart making. The meringue I made was from an Andy Bowdy recipe, but since I scaled it down drastically, the sugar didn’t completely disolve and was weird. In the recipe below, I’ll correct for that.
The pâte sablée receipe is from The Kitchn. For the cream, I added some coconut cream to to see how it’d behave. Wasn’t too bad, but the butter taste was still prominent. The receipe has been through two iterations and is derived from a Kitchenlicious recipe (though it does a passionfruit cream–> instead of puree, I used cream and reduce butter).
NOTE: this recipe is only for about four - five 4.5 in tarts. Alternatively, you can make a single, larger 8-9in tart.

1. Pâte Sablée:

  • 113 g (1 stick) butter, room temperature
  • 42 g powdered sugar
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 3 g (1/2 tsp) salt
  • 142 g all purpose flour
  • 14 g milk, if needed
  1. Beat butter and powdered sugar until creamy. I’ve been using a stand mixer to avoid flour flying everywhere, but I’m sure a bowl and hand mixer would work fine.
  2. Beat in egg yolk.
  3. Add flour and salt on low speed. Don’t overmix. If the dough seems dry, add some milk.
  4. Chill dough in plastic wrap for at least 1 hour in the fridge.
  5. Let soften a bit on the counter before rolling out. Roll out to a few cm. I place the dough between some parchment paper and roll it out between this.
  6. Using your tart mold (I have flan rings) as a reference, cut out a piece of the dough which will be able to cover the mold and press down into the mold.
    • This is what I’m still really bad at. The nice part about this dough, however, is that it’s easy to patch up if it cracks.
  7. Let the mold with the dough chill in the fridge for about half hour. Preheat oven to 375F.
  8. Stab the bottom of the tarts with a fork and create a grid of holes to allow steam to escape while it’s baking. Line the tarts with some parchment paper and use either pie weights or uncooked beans to hold down. Blind bake for 25 minutes or until starting to golden.
  9. Remove pie weights and parchment paper and bake for another 5 - 10 minutes. I was afraid of burning them, so I dropped the temp down to 325F.
  10. Once tart shells are cooled, they can be stored in the fridge or freezer until ready for use.

2. Matcha Cream:

  • 2.5 g gelatin powder
  • 12 g water
  • 1 large egg
  • 45 g granulated sugar
  • 30 g coconut cream
  • 30 g whipping cream
  • 4 - 6 g matcha powder
  • 40 g butter, cold + cubed
  1. Bloom gelatin. Stir in water to get an apple sauce-like consistency.
  2. Whisk egg in a bowl.
  3. Add the creams, sugar, and siftend matcha into a small saucepan and stir and bring to a boil. (Shouldn’t take too long).
  4. Remove from heat and add in scrambled egg.
  5. Bring back to head and stir until thickened. If you leave it while not being stirred, it will cook so whisk, whisk, whisk! Remove from heat once thickened.
  6. In a bowl, place the gelatin and strain the matcha cream mixture on top (to remove any possibly cooked egg/ lumps).
  7. Stir a bit to dissolve the gelatin and begin adding the cubed butter. Despite the matcha, the cream still was a bit buttery, so I’m sure reducing it maybe 30 g might still be able to set.
  8. Stir until the butter melts. If it cools too quickly and you’re unable to dissolve the butter, put the bowl over a double boiler briefly and stir, stir, stir.

3. Meringue:

  • 35 g egg white, room temperature
  • 45 g granulated sugar
  1. Add your egg white to a bowl with no oil on it. It will kill your meringue. I use freshly cracked eggs, so to bring egg whites up to room temperature quickly, I put them in a small container and then put this container into a bowl of hot water. After about 4 - 5 minutes, the egg whites should be fine.
  2. Beat/ whisk your egg whites until frothy and start to incorporate the granulated sugar a bit at a time (so it doesn’t go flying everywhere).
  3. Keep beating until you get stiff peaks that are smooth and glossy.
  4. Add to a piping bag with a star piping tip.

Assembly:

  1. The tart shells should be made first. Once the cream is made, you can pour into the tart shells.
  2. Add about 40g of cream into each tart shell. I was running out of cream towards the end, so you might want to scale up the cream recipe.
  3. Once the cream has been poured and it levels out, throw the tarts in the fridge briefly. It only take a few minutes to set.
  4. Take out and pipe on meringue peaks. I started around the edge of the tart shell and made two concentric circles and then a single peak in the center. It’ll depend how big your peaks are.
  5. Take a blow torch and lightly torch the meringue. It’ll be obvious if it’s burning, so don’t apply too much flame to the peaks.
  6. Sprinkle sifted matcha on top.
  7. Although probably best to meringue + torch + sprinkle matcha before serving, it doesn’t get too much worse after sitting in the fridge overnight.

Enjoy!
-Mario

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