No bake base Lemon Curd tart

Ingredients:

Base:

300g of Pitted Dates

150g of Ground Almonds

5 Tbsp Honey

1/2 tsp Vanilla essence

Lemon Curd:

6 Lemons

400g Sugar

230g Unsalted Butter

4 Large Eggs

4 Egg Yolks

Meringues:

4 Egg Whites

230g Caster Sugar

1 tsp Cornflour

1 tsp White Wine Vinegar

2 Tbsp Lemon gin

Yellow food colouring

Method:

At first I made the meringues first as this will take the longest to cook in the oven.

Firstly heat oven to 100C, then line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.

Add the 4 large egg white to the mixing bowl (not plastic). Beat the egg whites on medium speed with and electric whisk until it resembles a fluffy cloud and stands up in stiff peaks when the whisk is lifted. Now turn the speed up on the whisk and start adding the caster sugar a dessert teaspoon at a time. When ready the mixture should be thick and glossy. This is the point where you add the vinegar, cornflour and food colouring mix for another 30 seconds.

Place mixture into a piping bag and pipe onto the baking parchment. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until the meringues sound crisp when tapped underneath.. Leave to cool on tray or cooling rack.

The second part is to make the base which you will need a food processor for. I placed all ingredients for the base into the food processor and blitzed until the mixture held together. I then transferred the mixture into a greased loose bottom pie tin and pushed out to the edges. The mixture is very sticky so you made need to have damp hands to help.

The third part is to make the curd which I grated the zest and juiced all six lemons and placed into a bowl with the sugar and butter and placed over a saucepan of hot water. You then stir the mixture until the sugar had dissolved and the butter melted.

The next part is to put the eggs in the bowl and beat together, pour the eggs through the sieve and add to the lemon mixture and whisk well until combined. Stir the mixture constantly over the heat, until the lemon curd thickens and lightly coats the back of the wooden spoon. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the curd into the base, ( any leftover pour in a sterilised jar.) Once this is done place in the fridge to set.

Once the base and curd is set, take out of the tin and place on a plate and decorate with the meringues.