One Tart Dough for 2 Classic French Tarts (Lemon Meringue & Quiche Lorraine) | Tiny Parisian Kitchen

Hello everybody, welcome back to my channel. Today I thought that I would show you how to make probably something we eat the most, which are tarts. I'm going to do a savory and a sweet one and because it's March now and it really feels like spring already in Paris, I'm going to make something a little bit bright and springy. I'm going to make a quiche Lorraine and then one of my favorite tarts, a lemon meringue tart. And I'm going to use the same pastry crust for both of them so you don't have to make a sweet or savory one. Really simple, just a simple shortcrust pastry that we're going to use for both. So let's get started. So we're first going to start with the shortcrust pastry, which I'm going to use for both of the tarts. Just use this flour, butter, water, and a little bit of salt. And I use this for, I think for most of my tarts, I use this for the base. Start with the flour first. For all of my baking, I usually use an unsalted butter because I like to be able to control how much salt I use for my bakes. But you do want to make sure that this butter is cold and we're going to cut it in very small little cubes. So I just use my hands to kind of like pinch the butter into the flour. My hands run a bit cold, so I don't really have a problem with this part. If you don't want to use your hands, you could use a pastry cutter to cut it in. But I find that I kind of like to feel, I like to be able to feel it to make sure that I've done it properly and then I can kind of gauge when to stop. Once it looks a bit like sand and you still have a little bit of kind of pea-sized chunks of butter, we're going to stop and add our water. It's just a small amount that you want to make sure is cold as well. And then we'll just bring it in and try to make one big, one big clump of dough. So now we're just going to get it into a ball and we'll put it in some film and we'll leave this to rest in the fridge for about 20 to 30 minutes. We'll just put this in the fridge on a nice even disc and just let it, just let it relax a little so the gluten doesn't form too much. So while the dough is resting in the fridge and I clean my dishes, I'd like to thank my very first sponsor, which is Headspace, which is also extra special for me because it's actually something I've genuinely been using. Headspace is a mindfulness app that guides you through short meditations and sleep casts and just gives you moments to just help you breathe. Yes, it's been shown that five minutes of Headspace a day can reduce your stress. Lately, I've been thinking about why I spend so much time in the kitchen and it's not just because it's my work, but it's because it's one of those places where my mind feels most quiet. When I'm here, I know exactly what needs to be done, step by step, one thing at a time. But outside of this space, my mind, it moves very quickly. I tend to overthink what's next, what I forgot, what I should be doing instead, especially now running my own businesses. And after a bit of a slow start to this year, I could feel that familiar noise creeping back in. I wasn't doing enough or what else should I be doing? And instead of waiting for a big reset, I started to use my Headspace a little bit more intentionally, just in small moments. Sometimes it's as simple as pressing play while I'm doing the dishes, which for me, it's already its own little meditation. But lately, I've been listening to the Managing Anxiety course, which gently just brings my attention back to what I'm doing instead of everything that I have waiting for me to do that day or the next day. And at night, when I feel tempted to work just a little bit longer, I've been trying to wind down a little bit differently. So I'll either put on brown noise or a sleep cast. And it gives my mind something to settle into instead of more stimulation. And seven days of Headspace has also been shown to improve sleep quality. And when I take Lola out to go for a walk, which already itself feels peaceful, I'll sometimes listen to Headspace then too. And it just turns something I'm already doing into a real rest. So thank you to Headspace for reminding me to just breathe, enjoy the moment, and remain focused. And you can try Headspace entirely for free for 60 days by using my link in the description box below or by scanning the QR code on screen. Now let's get back to my other happy place, making tarts. So for the quiche Lorraine, I'm going to use, this is about a 28 centimeter tart dish. And it's not very deep. I don't really, I'm not a big deep quiche fan. I'm going to spray with some baking spray. If you don't have baking spray, you can just rub it with a little bit of room temperature butter. Make sure to get in all the grooves and all of the surface. So now I'm just going to roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment with a little bit of flour. You want to make sure that the dough never sticks to the parchment. So I just like to periodically lift up the parchment and add a little bit more flour just to see if it's sticking or not. And I always roll in the middle out, middle out, middle out. So it keeps it, keeps the shape nice. And it also makes sure that you don't have one side that's too longer than the other one. And it also keeps the same thickness throughout the crust. So now this is the important part when you're lining it. You want to make sure that you take your dough out and you push it into the corner because you're trying to form like a perfect right angle. This is what keeps your dough from shrinking when it's in the oven. If it's like this, it's going to shrink. But if it has a nice right angle, then it's not, this dough isn't affecting how this one is. So you just push it into the corner. But don't force it. If you force the dough in any certain way, then it, it also leads to shrinking. You're just delicately placing it into the corner. And then you can either use a knife or I just like to take my rolling pin, kind of roll it over the edge to get a nice cut. So I'm just going to use a fork to prick all over the bottom so it doesn't have any air bubbles when it bakes. And then we're going to put this in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. You want this to be really nice and chilled before you put it in the oven because you want to firm up the butter so that it has a nice flaky crust and also so the dough doesn't shrink when it bakes. So for 30 minutes minimum, I would say. I'm going to blind bake the crust first for both of the tarts. I always like to blind bake, pre-bake the pie before I put the filling in. Usually for my sweet crust, I don't really do this method because if it's made properly and you don't handle it too much, you really don't need to do this. But because this crust has such a high butter to flour ratio, it can lead to more shrinkage. So I do like to wait it down for the first 10-15 minutes and then I'll remove it and let it bake for another five or so minutes until it starts to get a golden brown color. So I just crumple up some parchment, spread it out, and put it in here. And you can use either, I think they're ceramic little balls, like pie weights. Or if you don't have those, I have leftover rice, beans, I think these are lentils that I've saved and I use these to weigh down. Make sure you get it into the corners because that's where you're going to have the most shrinkage in your pie. Put this in the oven at about 180 degrees Celsius. So I'll put this in the oven for about 10-15 minutes or so. You just want to make sure that the crust has kind of started to set. And then once we remove the parchment with the beans and everything, then it'll start to get the golden brown color. We're next going to start on the filling for the quiche Lorraine. And you first want to cook your bacon, or what they call here the Lardon Roumée, which is just a smoked pork fat. So whatever is equivalent in your country. And they're in small little pieces. That's what we're going to cook first. So now we're going to make the filling for the quiche Lorraine, which is very simple ingredients. You just need eggs, cream, cream fresh if you'd like, and maybe a bit controversial, but I do put cheese in mine. Put a little bit of Comté, or you can use Gruyère. If you want to make it traditional, you don't have to use cheese. But if you want it to taste even better, I use cheese. So we're going to start with the eggs. You need about four eggs at room temperature. So now we'll add the cream. So I like to use a very full fat cream fresh. This is about a 40%. And also using the cream fresh with the cream gives it that really velvety texture that you want. Because if you use milk, it's kind of a little bit too runny. So now add the salt. And I like to use ground pepper. And then a little bit of freshly ground nutmeg. And you don't want to incorporate too much air when you whisk it. You just want to whisk it till it's combined. So now I'm going to add my cheese. Again, you don't have to if you want traditional, but if you want a little bit of extra goodness, I say add the cheese. So I add about 50 grams of freshly grated either Comté or Gruyère. And now we'll just add our Lardon. So just make sure you let it cool, like five or 10 minutes. But we're just going to add our filling to the tart. So now we're going to put this in the oven at about 180 degrees Celsius, just looking for the outer edge to be set. But there's like a very slight wiggle in the center. I think a lot of people over bake their quiches and they don't have that little slight wiggle and they just do it till it's fully set. And it kind of has a more gritty texture and you want more of a velvety smooth texture. So put this in and we'll check in about 30 minutes. So now we're going to move on to the filling for the lemon tart. So you need about three to four lemons. So you want to zest them first and then we're going to get the juice from them. So into the pan now, after I've zested the lemons, I'm just going to squeeze them. I only need about 140 grams. So depending how juicy your lemons are, it's usually about three to four. So I just put the pan on top of the scale just to scale out for about 140 grams. Then we're going to add our sugar to the lemon juice. I'm going to add a pinch of salt and our butter. So we're going to put this on the stove for about medium heat. You just want it to come to a steam so that the butter melts and it gets nice and warm. And we'll work on the eggs while it's warming up. So for a lot of lemon tart fillings, you'll see where recipes usually use a lot of egg yolks, which is lovely and fine, but I, as not to waste too much egg whites, I like to use more whole eggs with egg yolks. And so then that way the leftover egg whites, it's not too much. And then we can use that for the meringue on top. So for this one, I use four whole eggs with two yolks and just save the egg whites for the meringue that we'll make for the top of it later. Get any shell or anything in your egg whites. Instead of sticking your finger in there and scrimmaging around for it for hours to try to get it out, just use an egg shell that's already empty and it'll immediately take it out. That's a little trick. So just whisk this, not till it becomes light, but just till it is all mixed together. You don't want to incorporate too much air and then make sure to keep your egg whites out at room temperature until you make the meringue with it. Because to make meringue, your egg whites have to be at room temperature or else they just won't whip properly. So we'll just whip this just till it all comes together. So now the butter is completely melted and it's nice and hot. We're going to slowly add this into the egg yolks just to bring the eggs to room temperature. So you're just to all put this in a pan and put it on the stove, the eggs would almost cook and curdle. So this is just a way to temper your eggs before you cook them. So just slowly add. Okay, so once it's all added, we're going to add this back to the pan. So we'll put this back on the heat at medium low, continuously whisking it so it doesn't curdle the eggs or cook anything, till it's nice and thick and almost bubbling. So now it's thickened and it just starts to bubble on the top. That's when you know it's done. So we'll take this off. Now you could just pour this straight into your into your tart, but I just like to use a sieve just to strain it so it's nice and smooth. And if there's any little lemon seeds that I didn't see, just strain those out a bit. I've already pre-baked my tart pan and I like to bake it kind of till it's almost completely golden and set because we put this in the oven for about 10-ish minutes. So it's really not going to cook the crust anymore. It's just to set your filling. So I kind of like to cook this as close to being finished as possible. Now put this in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 10 minutes. So it's been about 10 minutes and the edges are set. And when you give a little shake, it has a little wobble to it. Because if you, if you bake it till there's no movement, then you've overbaked it and it'll be kind of gritty. So this is a way to keep it nice and smooth and still set up firm when you put it in the fridge. So we're going to put this in the fridge for at least an hour or two, just so that it completely cools down. So when you add the meringue on top, it doesn't melt or anything. And also it's much nicer when it's colder. So put this in the fridge for at least an hour. Okay. So now that the lemon tart has been baked and it's been chilling, we're going to make the meringue for the top. So with the leftover egg whites that we used for the filling and again, make sure that the egg whites are room temperature or you'll have the hardest time trying to whip them. But no matter the grams that you added for meringue, the ratio is about one part egg white to about 1.5 to two of sugar. So if we had 80 grams of egg white, then you need about 120 grams of sugar. I'm going to do this the French meringue style. So you want to add your sugar spoonful at a time so that the sugar is able to dissolve in your egg white. Cause if it doesn't dissolve and it's grainy, then it will start to what we call weep. And the, the sugar will start to leak out of the egg white and it won't stay fluffy. So you really want to make sure that you whisk it one tablespoon at a time. Again, I'm doing this by hand to show you that it can be done. If you don't have a stand mixer or one of the handheld electric whisk, it does take a little bit more effort and time, but it can be done. It's just a bit of a workout. So I'm just going to whisk the egg whites until it starts to get foamy. And then I'll start adding the sugar one at a time. So you're going to whisk it until you have some stiff peaks or as I always try. So you can either use as is and just spoon it on top or what I'm going to do is I'm going to pipe it on and kind of give it a little bit of a pattern. But again, you can decorate and do this as you wish. So for this, I'm just using a pastry bag with a star tip. So now I'm just gonna lightly torch it. So you can just leave your tart as is, but I always take any excuse to add my edible flowers on top. So I'm just going to get some from my little garden on my window. And I think because the tart is yellow, it's nice to pair it with either a blue or a purple flower because it's a nice contrast for the yellow. Thank you for watching how to make a savory and a sweet French tart. And I hope it shows you just how really simple and easy it can be. You just need to use the same pastry crust, a few simple ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry. And you can really make this any time of the year. What I like to show people is that French baking and cooking, you don't really need many ingredients or any special tools or space. And you can really make something quite beautiful and delicious all throughout the year. So let me know what else you'd like to see me cook or bake down below, or places you'd like me to go to in Paris or beyond in France. And yeah, hope you enjoyed. You have a very good day. Thank you. And thank you to Headspace for partnering on today's video because it really just goes to show that you don't need perfect routine or a big life overhaul. You just need a few quiet moments here and there. Just to reset and focus can make truly all the difference. So if you would like to try Headspace, you can use my link which is in the description below to get 60 days free or by scanning the QR code on screen. And thank you again for watching today's video and à bientôt!