Tart for a Tart

A few weeks ago my cousins, Ben and Ed, brought over a bag of home grown mandarins - i'd love to say they were sweet juicy organic jewels of flavour sensation, except they were dry and sour and they were sitting there about to go mouldy. haha

So what to do with a bunch of mandarins that aren't fit to eat? I was thinking of making jam but that might require me to sterilise jars and take much more time and effort than I was willing to invest on a sunday morning, so I decided to take the easy option - mandarin curd. It was the first time I made it - I used a recipe for lemon curd from the Bill Granger recipe book that my cousins gave me for my bday (yay), except the mixture wasn't thickening and I ended up doubling the batch thinking it was some juice to egg to butter ratio. In the end I consulted Nigella's domestic goddess turns out I didn't have enough heat. I love her cookbooks!

Baked some left over pastry, spooned on the curd and it was great. I also ended up using 10 egg yolks and so had to make a double batch of lemon friands to use the left over egg whites. It was a baked goods daily double...not so good for the 'lean mean paddling machine' diet though.