Mango Curd Tart with Toasted Coconut Crust

Happy New Year! What a crazy few weeks it's been. I'm finally getting settled into my new home, and testing out my brand new oven. It's all very exciting. I spent NYE with my family, and my Mum originally requested a lemon curd tart for dessert with some fresh blueberries that she bought on special. I decided to be difficult and I changed it from a lemon curd tart to a mango curd tart at the last minute. Mango curd is my current new baking love. I made it a few weeks ago for my brother's birthday and it was a revelation. The wonderful rich flavour of ripe, sweet mangoes is offset by the tang of lime juice.

My only concern about making this curd as the filling of my tart was that it was rather runny the last time I made it and I didn't want to cut into my tart and have the filling pooling out all over the plate. To be safe I added a tiny bit of gelatine to the mixture and it did the trick. The curd stayed juuust firm enough to hold itself while it was cut into slices, but not enough to stop the creamy filling from melting in your mouth. Of course, if you don't eat gelatine you can always skip this and maybe add a little extra butter to ensure it sets.

Instead of a plain old shortcrust pastry for the tart shell, I wanted to add toasted coconut to the crust. I found the perfect recipe with a quick google search, it was really easy to mix up in my food processor (though you could probably just mix the ingredients together with an electric mixer too), and made this perfect, super thin, crisp and golden crust, fragrant with toasted coconut. It was the such a great pastry to match with the mango filling.

The blueberries were a little unnecessary, but like I said in my last post I'm making sure to make the most of the cheap, super sweet fresh summer berries in Australia at the moment. I've got a very busy week coming up with my niece's 1st birthday so I will hopefully have lots of new recipes and photos to share with you. Hope you all have a fantastic New Year!

Mango Curd Tart with Toasted Coconut Crust

(Curd recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen, pastry recipe from epicurious)

For the toasted coconut crust:

1/2 cup (50g/1 3/4 oz) dessicated coconut

3/4 cup (about 105g) plain/all-purpose flour

100g (7 tbsp) cold butter, cut into cubes

1/3 cup (about 40g) icing/confectioner's sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 23cm (9 inch) loose-bottomed tart tin. Spread coconut in an even layer on a baking tray and toast in the middle of the oven, stirring occasionally until golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven (leaving oven on), and allow to cool to room temperature. Place cooled coconut, flour, butter, icing sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until dough just begins to form a ball. Using floured fingers, press dough in evenly on to bottom and sides of prepared tin (there is only enough to form a thin layer, so you must make sure it is as even as possible or it may crack at weaker spots). Place in freezer for 10 minutes, then bake in oven for 25 minutes or until golden. Cool completely in tin on a wire rack then carefully remove.

For the Mango Curd:

1 tsp powdered gelatine

1 ripe mango (about 450g/15oz), peeled, pitted, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
Pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
60g (1/2 stick) butter, cut into small pieces

Optional: fresh berries to decorate

Mix gelatine in a small bowl with 1 tbsp cold water and set aside. Puree mango, sugar, lime juice and salt in processor, scraping down sides of work bowl occasionally. Add yolks; puree 15 seconds longer. Strain through sieve set over large metal bowl, pressing on solids with back of spatula to release as much puree as possible. Discard solids in sieve.

Set metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water); add gelatine mixture to bowl and whisk puree until gelatine dissolves, mixture is thickened and thermometer registers about 80°F( 170°F), about 10-15 minutes. Remove from over water. Whisk in butter 1 piece at a time. Cover and chill to room temperature, then pour into prepared crust and refrigerate overnight. Can also be decorated with fresh berries before chilling. Serve straight out of the fridge.