Raspberry Curd Tartlets

We had such great success with the lemon curd tartlets from a few weeks ago, that we couldn’t resist raspberry curd tartlets when we saw a recipe for them in The Taste of Home’s Baking Book. Upon inspection of the recipe, we did realize that there were fundamental differences. This one used whole eggs instead of egg yolks and started with heating the butter instead of adding cold butter at the end. Being the rule followers that we are, we just trusted the recipe and went for it.

The beginning went well. We pureed raspberries and lemon juice and strained the mixture to remove the seeds (the one thing I don’t like about raspberries is the seeds.) But when it came time to making the curd, it was not a pretty picture. Since the eggs were added last to an already hot mixture, they immediately started to scramble even with rapid stirring. Even though the recipe did not call for another bout of straining, we had to as you can see. Now, I’ve heard of green eggs, but never pink eggs! YUCK!

Needless to say, we were worried at this point. I also tasted the curd before we let it chill and the predominant flavors were butter and eggs. I feel like the predominant flavor should be the raspberry! With the lemon curd, there was such a strong lemon flavor that it was almost impossible to distinguish any other flavor. After this taste test, I was even more worried.

Onward with the adventure though. Brett made the tartlet dough which again was different from the lemon curd tartlet recipe. There was no chilling or rolling, just mix it up and press it into the tartlet pans. We ended up with some pretty thick crusts, but since the curd chilling in the fridge was questionable at best, I was happy with having extra crust! Also the recipe said nothing about poking holes before baking and they rose like crazy. We should have thought of this, but I’m still blaming the recipe. We remembered halfway through the baking and sure enough we had to do a bit of damage control. Brett went ahead and poked them at this point and they went down considerably.

When everything was cooled and chilled, Brett was the brave one to assemble his tart for consumption. We put a dollop of Cool Whip and a fresh raspberry for garnish. (See, I’m trying a little harder with the presentation!) They looked beautiful…and tasted…OK. Brett ate his without barfing and actually said that the crust helped to bring out some of the raspberry flavor and in the end, decided it was good. I’m a bit pickier, so I braved it and noticed the same things. The crust helped tremendously! I wouldn’t call it delicious, and I’m not going to make this again, but it is certainly a halfway decent sweet treat…but then again so is a popsicle.