Primrose Tartlets

Ingredients:

100g shortcrust pastry (ie made with 100g flour)

For the Cream Filling:
20g butter
60g sugar
juice of l lemon
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 bunch of primroses

Method:

For the primroses, remove the flowers from the petioles. You need 15g of primrose flowers, which you should chop finely. You also need to set aside 30 of the best looking flowers to decorate your tartlets.

Roll out your pastry and use to line the wells of a tartlet tin. Prick the base of the pastry, fill with baking beans then place in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes. After this time transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the pastry is just golden. Remove from the oven, allow to cool and remove the baking beans.

Now prepare the egg cream filling. Gently melt the butter, take off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Now beat together the egg and egg yolk in a bowl before stirring into the lemon juice mix. Place over gentle heat and cook, stirring constantly with a whisk. Continue cooking very gently until the mixture begins to thicken. Take off the heat, allow to cool then stir in the chopped flowers.

Spoon the primrose custard into the prepared pastry shells, dust with icing sugar then place a whole primrose flower in the centre of each tartlet. Place under a hot grill and cook for about 3 minutes, or until the top is very lightly browned (be careful not to burn the flower).