Zesty Poppy Poms Tart

This is a citrus tart baked with poppy seeds in the crust 

with lots of lemon + orange zest & juice in the filling 

& sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. 

I was inspired by Edd Kimber's Lemon Tart..& had the itch to bake a lemon tart,

since it has been awhile that tarts were churned out of my bakery.

So I started searching for a simple recipe & found this by Rachel Allen. 

I tweaked it a little bit & here it is - zesty poppy poms tart:

main ingredients for the pastry dough

the rubbing method

adding 1/2 egg to form a dough --> chill the dough for 30 minutes

the flavour bursts of the filling

preparing to blind-bake the pastry dough

rolling out the dough & fitting it into the tart tin

whipping up the filling

skimming the foam & stirring in the pomegranate seeds
--> pouring the filling into the cooked pastry dough

into the oven!

Makes 12 slices (a 26-cm tart)

Ingredients (for the crust)
- Plain flour, 200g, sifted
- Poppyseeds, 2 teaspoons
- Icing sugar, 1 tablespoon
- Butter, salted, 100g, chilled and cubed
- Egg, 1/2, beaten 

Ingredient (for the filling)
- Eggs, 3
- Lemon, grated zest, 1
- Orange, grated zest, 1
- Sugar, caster, 125g
- Whipping cream, 150ml
- Lemon, juice, 3
- Orange, juice, 1
- Pomegranate seeds, 2 tablespoons 

Methods 
1. Combine the flour, poppy seeds and icing sugar, mix well.
2. Rub in the chilled  butter cubes until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. 
3. Add in the egg and mix until a dough forms.
4. Flatten the dough to a 2cm round, wrap with a plastic and chill for 30 minutes. 
5. Preheat oven to 180°C.
6. Roll out the pastry dough with a rolling pink and line a 23-cm (I only had a 26-cm one so i used that..that means my crust would be very thin) tart tin with the dough.
7. Cover the dough with baking paper and fill it with beans/rice (this is call blind-baking).
8. Bake for 15 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, place the eggs, zes and sugar in a big bowl.
10. Use an electronic mixer to blend these ingredients well for about 30 seconds.
11. Add in the cream and juice, mixing well (skim off the froth from the top).
12. Stir in the pomegranate seeds. 
13. Pour the filling into the cooked pastry base.
14. Reduce the oven temperature to  160°C and bake for 35 minutes or until the feeling has just set in the centre (it would wobble just slightly when removed from the oven).
15. Cool for 30 minutes before transferring the tart to a plate for slicing. 
16. Enjoy your tart with a cup of hot tea !

How was it?

Pastry base - too thin..base has to be much thicker.

Filling - i love it, it has a strong tartsy (might be too sourish for some) oomph. 

Better it up!
- use 1.5x pastry dough for a 26-cm tart thin
- increase pomegranate seeds to 4 tablespoons
- may attempt a grapefruit twist !

The Verdict

Recipe adopted from...
Rachel Allen.