This recipe is for bite-sized Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts made with a buttery pastry shell, tangy lemon curd, and the best torched meringue topping you'll ever try!
If you love mini tarts, you can't miss these Mini Banoffee Tartlets or this recipe for Mini Apple Crumble Tarts.
Why This Mini Lemon Meringue Tart Recipe Works
- Recipe name: Lemon Meringue Tartlets
- Ready in: 2hrs 30 minutes
- Serves: 20 mini tartlets
- Main ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, lemons, and condensed milk.
- Perfect for: Dessert tables, Christmas spread, when you want to bring something special over to a friend.
- Why I love it: These mini tarts have the perfect balance between sweet and sour, and the meringue topping doesn't taste eggy!
- Calories: 220kcal
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Lemon Meringue Pie is just one of those desserts that you expect to see on every restaurant's cake display, and with good reason! This recipe is easy to follow and will teach you the steps you need to serve this classic dessert on your kitchen counter.
If lemon desserts are your absolute favourite, you can't miss these Lemon Meringue Cupcakes or this Baked Lemon Cheecake with White Chocolate Cream.
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Key Ingredients
- Extra-large eggs - out of their shells, the eggs I use weigh 56 grams each. If you aren't sure whether you have the same eggs, weigh the ones you have and adjust accordingly. Make sure your eggs are at room temperature; this is especially important for the meringue topping, as separating eggs at room temperature is easier.
- Condensed milk - choose a full-fat sweetened condensed milk for this recipe.
- Lemons - you will need the juice and zest for the lemon filling. Choose fresh lemons rather than bottled lemon juice.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations
You can use this recipe to bake a large lemon meringue pie if you'd prefer. You will need to adjust the baking times. Making your own pastry can be a little daunting, so if you'd like to skip this, then have a look at this recipe for a Biscuit Base Lemon Meringue Pie.
How to Make Mini Lemon Meringue Pies
Pastry Shells
- Step 1: Add the butter and sugar to a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is well combined and homogenous.
- Step 2: First, add the whole egg to the creamed mixture with the food processor running, and pulse until combined. Then add the egg yolk and vanilla and pulse again.
- Step 3: Sift together the flour and salt, and add this flour mixture to the egg and butter mixture all at once. Pulse until a dough forms; do not overmix.
- Step 4: Remove the dough from the mixer, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Step 5: Preheat the oven to 140°C (290°F) and brush 20 mini tart tins with melted butter. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of ½ cm ( ¼ inch) using a rolling pin. Cut discs of the rolled pastry slightly larger than the tart tins, place them in the buttered tart tins, and use your fingertips to gently press the pastry into the base of the tins and up the sides.
- Step 6: Line each pastry tin with parchment paper and fill it with uncooked rice or pie weights. Blind-bake the shells in a preheated oven for 15 minutes, until a light golden brown. Set aside.
Lemon Curd
- Step 1: In a large mixing bowl, add the condensed milk, egg yolks, fresh lemon juice, and lemon zest. Whisk to combine. Spoon the lemon mixture into the pre-baked pastry shells, filling them almost to the top.
- Step 2: Bake the filled lemon tarts in a preheated oven at 160°C (320°F) for 15 minutes or until the lemon filling is just set. Remove the tarts from the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes in their tins before removing them and cooling them completely on a wire rack.
Torched Swiss Meringue Topping
- Step 1: Add the egg whites and sugar to a heat-proof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. With the egg white mixture set over a double boiler, whisk continuously until the sugar has melted. Check this by rubbing a bit of the meringue mixture between your fingertips to ensure there are no sugar granules.
- Step 2: Once melted, add the meringue mixture to a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat at medium-high speed for 10 minutes, until stiff peaks form; the meringue must be thick and glossy. Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain round 1cm (0,4 inches) nozzle with the meringue mixture. Pipe a generous amount of meringue onto each tart, then use a kitchen blowtorch to toast it. Serve, and enjoy!
How to Blind Bake Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts
No one likes a soggy, undercooked pastry shell, so that's why bling baking is so important. Brush the mini loose-bottom tart tins with melted butter, line them with pastry, then fill them with baking paper and uncooked rice. Bake until just golden; this way, you won't risk overbaking the lemon filling. If you have any leftover dough, you can bake it into biscuits; see this Heart-Shaped Cookie Recipe with Jam for inspiration.
These came out absolutely delicious. The perfect balance of sweetness so that it's not to tart or to sweet. Definitely a truly scrumptious tart recipe especially for people like me who weren't lemon pie fans!
- Bea
Storage
These mini lemon meringue tarts are best eaten within a few hours after being assembled. If there are leftovers, store them in an airtight container at room temperature for about a day or two.
I do not recommend freezing these tarts once assembled. The pastry can be made ahead of time and frozen before baking. To freeze the pastry, wrap it well in plastic wrap and freeze it for up to 2 months. Defrost in the fridge overnight before rolling and baking.
Top tips
- Allow the pastry to chill properly before rolling it. Warm pastry is hard to roll.
- Roll out the pastry until it is thin; this will give you more space for the lemon filling.
- Check the actual temperature of your oven with an oven thermometer.
- Once the meringue topping has finished whipping, pipe it onto the tarts immediately.
Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts FAQs
Blind baking is the process of prebaking tart shells before filling them. To ensure the pastry cases remain hollow, the pastry is lined with parchment paper and filled with baking beans or rice, which act as weights. The weight of the beans or rice helps prevent the pastry from rising during baking.
Absolutely! You won't need to adjust the recipe's ingredient quantities; just change the bake time. I would start by setting the oven for 25 minutes and checking if the filling is done by pressing lightly with your fingertip in the middle of the tart to see if it has set.
To make this tart recipe you will need 20 mini tart tins, if you don't have 20 you can bake this recipe in batches as I did. Once all the tarts are baked, you can begin making the meringue topping. To make these mini tartlets, the tart pans I used measure 7cm across the top, 4.5cm across the bottom, and 2cm deep.
More Citrus Baking Recipes
These Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts need to make an appearance at your next tea party! They are such a hit, serve them alongside these Pistachio Raspberry Cupcakes and these no-bake Condensed Milk Chocolate Truffles.
Happy Baking, With Love, Kitty
Please leave a star rating and comment below if you tried this recipe! And if you're wondering what lemon bake to try next, have a look at this delicious Lemon Blackberry Bundt Cake!
📖 Recipe
Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts
Equipment
- 20x mini tart tins 7cm diameter
Ingredients
Pastry
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 100 g superfine sugar
- 1 egg extra large
- 1 egg yolk extra large
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 350 g cake flour
- 20 g unsalted butter melted, for brushing tart tins
Lemon Curd Filling
- 2 tins condensed milk 385g per tin
- 3 egg yolks extra large
- 80 ml lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
Meringue Topping
- 4 egg whites extra large
- 200 g superfine sugar
Instructions
Pastry
- Add the butter and sugar to a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is well combined and homogenous.
- First, add the whole egg to the creamed mixture with the food processor running, and pulse until combined. Then add the egg yolk and vanilla and pulse again.
- Sift together the flour and salt and add this flour mixture to the egg and butter mixture all at once. Pulse until a dough forms, do not overmix.
- Remove the dough from the bowl, cover it in a sheet of plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 140°C (290°F) and brush 20 mini tart tins with melted butter.
- Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of ½ cm ( ¼ inch) using a rolling pin.
- Cut discs of the rolled pastry slightly larger than the tart tins, place these pastry discs into the buttered tart tins, and use your fingertips to gently press the pastry into the base of the tin and up the sides of the tins.
- Line each pastry tin with parchment paper and fill this with uncooked rice or pie weights. Blind bake the shells in a preheated oven for 15 minutes until a light golden brown. Set aside.
Lemon Curd Filling
- In a large mixing bowl add the condensed milk, egg yolks, fresh lemon juice, and lemon zest. Whisk to combine.
- Spoon the lemon mixture into the pre-baked pastry shells, be sure to fill them almost to the top of the pastry shell.
- Bake the filled lemon tarts in a preheated oven at 160°C (320°F) for 15 minutes or until the lemon filling is just set.
- Remove the tarts from the oven and allow the tarts to cool for 15 minutes in their tins before removing them from their tins and allowing them to cool completely on a wire rack.
Meringue Topping
- Add the egg whites and sugar to a heat-proof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.
- With the egg white mixture set over a double boiler, whisk continuously until the sugar has melted. Check this by rubbing a bit of the meringue mixture between your fingertips to ensure there are no sugar granules.
- Once melted add the meringue mixture to a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat at medium-high speed for 10 minutes until stiff peaks, the meringue must be thick and glossy.
- Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain round 1cm (0,4 inches) nozzle with the meringue mixture. Pipe a generous amount of meringue onto each tart, and use a kitchen blow torch to torch the meringue until toasty. Serve, and enjoy!
Notes
- Be sure not to overbake the tart shells during their first bake, as they will be baked again with the filling. Slightly golden is enough.
Ruth Rodriguez says
Thank you for the recipe, it sounds amazing. I'm excited to try it out and serve it for my party.
Cat Spiller says
Hi Ruth! Thank you, I hope they come out perfectly and that you have a wonderful party 🙂
Marianne says
Hi, I loved the recipe but my meringue never worked unfortunately. It wasn’t firm no matter how much I mixed it. Do you think I over heated the egg whites? Thank you for your help.
Marianne
withlovekitty2020 says
Hi Marianne 🙂 I am so glad you loved this recipe! And sorry to hear about the meringue - I'm sure you would have noticed if you overheated it, but also you need to make 100% sure that you didn't have any traces of egg yolks in the whites and that all the utensils you were using were free from any traces of fat. I usually wash my bowls and whisks normally, then rub them with half a lemon and rinse them under very hot water before drying with a clean tea towel just to make sure. I hope this helps
Jenny says
Hi Kitty
These were delicious! The pastry is the best, crisp, yet buttery (melt in the mouth) pastry I have ever eaten! The lemon filling was also lovely, but we prefer more tang, so as suggested I added more lemon juice. One suggestion from a proud expat living in Australia, credit this recipe to South African cuisine and not American! In my experience as a 50-something mom is that lemon curd filling using condensed milk is uniquely South African. Americans and Brits use lemon curd (eggs to thicken the lemon juice and sugar) and no condensed milk as filling for lemon meringue. A delightful blog and of course, I will be making more of your recipes! I will also use your tart base for my milk tart! Thank you for your lovely blog!
withlovekitty2020 says
Hi Jenny! Thanks so much for your wonderful comment, Im so glad you liked this recipe. This pastry is something special 🙂
jennifer porter says
Looks so yummy will have a go
withlovekitty2020 says
Hi Jennifer! Thanks so much for your comment, these tarts are delicious, I hope you give them a go and let me know what you thought of them 🙂