Red grapefruit and meringue gluten free tartlets

Ingredients

Pastry cases

You could also use ready made shortcrust pastry that doesn’t contain FODMAPs. As a rule of thumb, avoid any bean and pulses flours.

• 175g Freee by Doves Farm Gluten Fee Plain Flour
• 25g glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour
• 1 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• butter for dish
• 80g tablespoons unsalted butter
• couple tablespoons cold water 
• 5 large egg yolks

Red Grapefruit Curd

• 3 egg yolks and 1 whole egg
• 150g caster sugar
• juice from 3 red ripe grapefruits plus cold water to make up 200 ml
• 65g cornflour
• 1/2 teaspoon of beet juice

Meringue

• 4 egg whites
• 175g sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornflour

Method

Preheat oven to 180C

Make the pastry first, this can be done a day in advance if you want. Blend flours, xanthan gum, butter and salt in a food processor until the texture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, eggs and 2 tablespoons of water and blitz again until combined into a ball. Check the consistency of the dough, you might need to add a bit more water if it is too dry, but don’t overdo it. Wrap the dough in a bag/clingfilm and store in fridge for at least 30, but no more than 4 days before use.

When ready to use, remove from fridge and let reach room temperature, about 5 minutes. If you roll out cold pastry that contains butter it will crack. Place parchment paper on your worktable and dust with flour. Roll out to a 5 mm thickness, careful not to stretch it out too much. If you gave it time to reach room temperature before rolling and it still cracks, it needs a bit more water. Pop it back in the food processor with 1 or 2 more tablespoons of water and give it a good blitz to combine, then back in the fridge again before rolling out.

I used miniature cupcake/muffin trays to make 36 tartlet cases and cut 5,5cm circles for each tart base to match the cupcake base diameter and 3,5 cm strips for the tart walls. Cut yours depending on your particular tray’s measurements. Lightly butter tray. Place dough discs in cupcake tray, then the dough strips to form the walls. Trim excess and gently press on edges to seal base and walls. Pop in oven and bake for 20 minutes.

For the filling, mix grapefruit juice, water, beetroot juice and cornflour and stir well in a non-stick pan, making sure there are no clumps left. Bring to a boil, while continually mixing. Remove from heat. Mix sugar and eggs and then carefully whisk into the grapefruit mixture in the pan. Cook on medium heat, stirring continuously until mixture has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool.

To make meringue, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add caster sugar a little bit at a time and continue whisking until meringue is still and glossy. Add cornflour and mix again.

Carefully scoop grapefruit curd in the pastry case. Pipe meringue on top starting from edges (to avoid it sinking in the curd) as you would cupcake frosting.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes until filling is set and meringue is lightly golden.

Enjoy!