Blood Orange Mini Tarts

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Sweet shortcrust pastry filled with a delicious, sweet blood orange curd. Topped with candied blood orange slices, perfect to welcome in spring!

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Blood Orange Mini Tarts

This Sunday is Mother’s Day in the UK and we’re finally starting to see some Spring like weather, at least down south we are anyway! So I thought it was time to post a nice bright and cheery dessert to celebrate Mother’s Day and welcome spring… or at least encourage it to appear more frequently! Of course, today it is raining so these little tarts have got a lot of work to be doing!

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

Even with the raining falling and the wind howling, these delicious little treats will definitely brighten your day, even if only inside your head. They’re packed full of sweet blood orange flavour, with the curd being surprisingly creamy. The colour is sure to bring a smile to your face too, such a wonderful red colour – which is fitting considering tonight is also Comic Relief aka Red Nose Day. 

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

I’ve been itching to use these mini tart tins {affiliate link} ever since I got them, and once I got my hands on some blood oranges I knew they were destined to become some kind of mini tart. My original plan was to make the curd and use it flavour a mascarpone filling, which sounds delicious to me! However once I made the curd I was so blown away by how yummy it was, I wanted to let it shine on it’s own! The only downside to that being is I didn’t make enough curd to fill all the tarts so I was left with a couple empty cases, the recipe is easily doubled though – the recipe in this post makes enough curd to fill four 10cm tarts, so just double it to suit your needs. I’m definitely going to be making this curd again though, so perhaps next time I’ll combine it with a mascarpone filling to see how my original idea would pan out!

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

 

After seeing JuJu’s post with candied citrus I knew I wanted to make some myself and this was the perfect recipe to do that! They came out wonderful, I followed her recipe just with a reduced quantity because I only had 1 orange to candy. They’re not technically necessary for these tarts, but they make them look even more wonderful and add another texture to go along with the smooth curd and crunchy pastry.  

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

The pastry on these is beautifully crisp, but still wonderfully buttery. It’s made with egg yolks too to keep it rich and full of flavour. It’s nice and easy to put together too, if perhaps a made a tad unconventionally (the butter and sugar creamed first, rather than the butter being rubbed into the dry ingredients). The pastry is baked completely by itself and requires no further baking after the filling is added. You’ll need something to weigh the pastry down, if you don’t have baking beans then rice or dried beans will work perfectly well – just make sure you line the cases with parchment paper or you’ll be baking the recipe right into the pastry and that’s not the kind of crunch you want!

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

I was really impressed with the colour I was able to get on this blood orange curd, it’s my first time baking with blood orange and everything I’ve seen in the past always tends to be a pink colour, I must have had very red oranges! I did manage to fool my mum into think I’d made tomato ketchup tarts since they are such a bright red, she was much happier when I told her they were actually blood orange! Which is good since these tarts and this post are dedicated to my mum for Mother’s Day! 

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

I’m gonna bring these delightful blood orange mini tarts along to Fiesta Friday today too, I hope they put a smile on all the party goers faces – especially the mums in attendance! Big shout out to our host Angie as always and this week’s co-hosts Jhuls and Mila

Do come hang out with me on social media, I’d love to see you guys around there! You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.  Sharing is caring, so if you like this recipe please do consider using the share icons down the side of this page or at the bottom of this post to let your friends in on the yummy secret!  And if you subscribe you’ll get free updates directly into your inbox, no spam just yummy recipes!

Blood Orange Mini Tarts

Blood Orange Mini Tarts
Yields 4
Gorgeous mini tarts filled with delicious blood orange curd, with a sweet shortcrust pastry and candied blood orange slices
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For candied orange slices
  1. 1 blood orange
  2. 240ml water
  3. 250g caster sugar (super fine granulated)
For the curd
  1. 4 blood oranges, cleaned and dried
  2. 1 large egg
  3. 1 large egg yolk
  4. 115g caster sugar (super fine granulated sugar)
  5. 60g unsalted butter
  6. pinch of salt
  7. pinch of ground cinnamon
For the pastry
  1. 90g unsalted butter, softened
  2. 65g caster sugar (super fine granulated)
  3. 3 medium egg yolks
  4. 200g plain flour (all purpose)
  5. 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
To make the candied orange slices
  1. Thinly slice the orange. Add the water and sugar to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once sugar has dissolved, add the orange slices. Simmer for 1-2 hours, until translucent. Mine too about 1 hour 20 minutes.
  2. Remove from sugar mixture and place on a well greased wire rack with a sheet of parchment underneath it. Once cooled, store between layers of parchment paper to stop the slices sticking together
To make the curd
  1. Zest the oranges and set aside.
  2. Juice the oranges and strain juice to remove any stray seeds and pulp. Add juice to a medium saucepan and cook on a low heat. Reduce the juice until you have 125ml left. Leave to cool.
  3. Rinse out the saucepan and dry while juice is cooling. Add sugar, eggs, salt and cinnamon to it and whisk to combine. Add butter and slowly whisk in cooled juice reduction and the orange zest.
  4. Cook over a medium low heat, whisking constantly until mixture is thickened and coats the back of a spoon, about 15 minutes. Strain the curd through a fine mesh sieve, cool curd and cover. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour*
To make the pastry
  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale. Add the egg yolks one at a time until combined.
  2. Mix the flour and cinnamon in until a dough starts to form. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead to form a ball dough.
  3. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap on cling film and chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
  4. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Lightly grease your tart tins and place on a baking sheet
  5. Roll out the dough, you want it nice and thin. Use rolling pin to lift dough and drape over a tin, gently press the dough in the tin, repairing any tears and trimming the edges. Repeat for all tins. (dough is enough for six 10cm tins).
  6. Line the pastry cases with parchment paper and then fill with baking beans or rice/dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the baking beans and parchment and bake for a further 10 minutes, until a nice golden brown.
  7. Leave to cool in tins on wire rack.
  8. Carefully remove pastry cases from tin and spoon in curd, smoothing out. Top with a candied orange slice
Notes
  1. *curd will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week
  2. Tarts will keep for 5 days in an airtight container in the fridge
  3. Double the curd recipe to fill all pastry cases
  4. If you don't have blood oranges, the recipe will work with navel oranges just fine - obviously just with a difference taste and colour.
  5. Don't worry too much about the size of your oranges, you want to start off with roughly the juice of 4 medium sized oranges, but a little more or a little less won't matter - you just want to end up with 125ml of the reduction. You can start off with 125ml juice and not reduce it, but you flavour and colour won't be as intense.
A Tipsy Giraffe https://www.atipsygiraffe.com/
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Blood Orange Mini Tarts

 

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69 comments

  1. Dini @ Giramuk's Kitchen says:

    These look BEAUTIFUL Michelle! That red curd and Candied Blood orange is just stunning!
    I love Red nose day! I remember waiting to buy the sponge red noses and getting to wear them all day at school! 🙂
    I can’t think of a better way to celebrate REd nose day than eating these with a red nose! Just stunning 🙂

    Reply
  3. Judi Graber says:

    Wow – the colors in your tarts are beautiful and I know they taste good too. Thanks for mentioning my post, candied fruits are fun to work with and they look so pretty on top of desserts 🙂 I will have to try candying blood oranges some time soon!

    Reply
  5. Loretta says:

    These mini tart parts are driving me bonkers Michelle- I just have to indulge and buy some…..how easy is the pastry though? It looks easy enough I guess. I love the striking colors and yes, the candied fruit is something I’ll have to try too. The blood oranges really set it off. I’ll take a peek at Jhuls’ recipe. Well done!

    Reply
  7. Stephanie @ The Cozy Cook says:

    WOW these look amazing and couldn’t be any better for Mother’s Day & Spring!! You are always so creative! I have to tell you, I accidentally typed in Giraffe’s can “Cake” instead of Bake, and I didn’t realize it but almost had a heart attack when I saw the site didn’t exist. I was like “MICHELLE!!!?!??”- took me too long to find that typo but it was a relief! ; )

    Reply
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  18. Mila says:

    Love tarts. Love blood oranges! I’m starting to lose hope to find them here.. May be you could send me some please? 😀
    Happy FF! Have a lovely week! 🙂

    Reply
  19. Shari Kelley says:

    These are just stunning! Such a beautiful color. I had never tried blood oranges until a couple weeks ago. I wasn’t sure how they would taste, but they were delicious as I’m sure these tarts must be. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

    Reply
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  33. Lindy says:

    Oh WOW these look fantastic – definitely going to make them as soon as I can get my mitts on some blood oranges..I make all my own jams, so will make the curd also to spread on my morning baguette! Your photos are amazing – Angie invited me to join the Fiesta Friday crew, but my little blog (only started 8 weeks ago) is so amateur compared to what I’ve seen on here. I’m loving all your wonderful posts though – thank you – Lindy

    Reply
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