Add a great citrus flavor to a basic crust recipe. This lime tart crust is perfectly flavored for a lime tart dessert. 
Lime Tart Crust
I am still a complete amateur baker. One of my challenges is pie crust. I can never get it to stay up on the sides of the pan when I have to pre-bake it. I know I’m not alone here. It happens to everyone. But I want it to stop happening to me. This is kind of frustrating, but at least the lime tart crust turned out well enough to use. It wasn’t pretty in the pan, but you would never know when it was full.
Making crusts is a real issue for me. I googled tips and tricks. I read several tutorials. I tried my best to get this crust perfect.
In all of my reading on making the perfect crust, they all said to use pie weights. Pie Weights
help to keep the crust from bubbling up as well as prevent side shrinkage. I do not have pie weights, so I opted for the “free version” of pie weights, and that’s to use dry beans and rice.
As you can see, I still ended up with my sides falling down. It’s not evident once I removed it from the pan, but I was still disappointed with it.
Here’s where I think I went wrong :
1. I let the butter get too small when pulsing in the Food Processor
. You should still see butter pieces in crust.
2. I let the crust get too soft when I was working with it. When I took it out of the fridge the first time, it cracked. So I let it sit. I left it out too long and it was now too soft, so I re-rolled it and put it back into the fridge. I repeated this two times because I fail at multitasking.
3. I did forget to put it back into the fridge once it was in the tart pan. Again, back to the butter.
4. I used store brand butter. Store brand butter is not the best for baking treats that need to hold their shape – like sugar cookies and crusts. I should have used a good quality butter that has less water in it.
Lesson Learned.
I will try another crust and see if I can make it stay in place the next time.
If you have any tips and tricks to perfect pie/tart crust, please share them!
This recipe is part two of a three part series for a Cherry Lime Tart with Homemade Maraschino Cherries.
Lime Tart Crust
A touch of lime zest adds some character to this simple tart crust.
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick cold butter
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar, and salt. Add in butter and lime zest and pulse again. The butter should not be over processed. Just pulse until small pea-sized butter lumps are present.
- Add the egg yolk, extract, and water and pulse until a dough ball forms.
- Place the dough ball on a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Roll the dough into a 12 inch disk and place it in the fridge for 45 minutes to firm up.
- Generously grease your tart pan with solid shortening.
- Remove dough and press into tart crust. It will soften as you work it with your fingers. Return to fridge for another 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Remove tart from fridge and prick with a fork. Place a round piece of greased foil in the center of the tart completely covering the center. Add some pie weights or uncooked beans or rice to the top of the foil and bake for 20 minutes.
- Cool completely in the pan.
- Cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to fill it.
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This is really interesting! Looks great 🙂