Lime Meringue Tartlets (2024)

I’m a creature of routine, but this spring, I had the urge to switch things up. To wit, I spontaneously decided that I was going to start running again. It’s been a good five years since I could legitimately call myself a runner. My senior year of college, I ran 3 miles almost every day, running longer distances of 5 to 10 miles on weekends. Back then, I loved running. I found it cathartic and meditative. I listened to the same playlist on almost every run (including some gems like Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love” and Metro Station’s “Shake It”) so much that I actually developed a Pavlovian response to these songs — if I heard them elsewhere at a party or on the radio, my legs would start to feel twitchy and antsy, as if begging to go on a run. Weird, right?

My love for running disappeared when I moved to San Francisco. San Francisco’s a bit of a nightmare to run in. Instead of Portland’s lush, green neighborhoods, I was faced with crowded sidewalks with stop signs and lights at literally every corner. It was impossible to get to that running nirvana where my mind would just clear and I would forget about that ache in my foot or the troubles of the day. It just became kind of a slog. I eventually traded in running for rock climbing, which I then traded for Crossfit. Yes, yes, Crossfit, the somewhat controversial fitness regimen that seems to get everybody’s panties in a twist. It seems like most people are either die hard fans who eat clean (or Paleo, for you uninitiated) and swap war stories about the time they RXed Fran, or are criticizing it for being an incredibly stupid and dangerous workout. I’m a rare bird that happens to fall somewhere between the two camps. That is, I like weight lifting and eating refined sugar… yep. Deal with it.

But I’ve been Crossfitting for two and a half years, and I think I’m starting to get bored. Crossfit simply isn’t giving me the returns that it used to. Not just physically, but mentally as well. I used to look forward to these brutal workout sessions, excited to sweat and grunt and throw barbells around like the shirtless dudes in my classes. But now it’s just become so ingrained in my routine that I’m not even excited if I master a new move. Not a good sign, right? So, long story short, here I am regressing to my habits from five years ago. I’ve even got that same playlist with those hits from 2008 and 2009, hoping that the Pavlovian conditioning from back then will still kick in. Because maybe, to get out of this funk, I gotta try something new… by going back to the old? Or something like that.

In any case, enough of my nonsense. I can just hear you guys thinking “Why is this girl blathering on about her exercise routine? This is a friggin’ food blog, not a fitness blog.” Indeed it is, so let’s talk about these beautiful lime meringue tarts:

A few years ago, I posted a recipe for this lemon blackberry tart, which I still believe is one of the best recipes on this blog. For a long time, I couldn’t find anything that could quite match the creaminess of that lemon curd… until I had a lime meringue tart at Miette, a beloved bakery in San Francisco.

One of Miette’s specialties is a graham cracker crust tart filled with this lime cream and a soft meringue frosting. Despite my love for their lime curd, I was disappointed to find that the meringue that topped the cream was soft. I had expected more of a contrast between between the lime cream and the meringue! So I decided to whip up a version that gave me just that:

I used my favorite tart crust (a brown butter tart crust that will maintain its crisp under almost any filling) and some homemade meringues that are crunchy on the outside and chewy within. For fun, I ended up torching some of the meringues to give it a subtle, smoky flavor reminiscent of s’mores. The resulting texture — creamy lime, sandwiched between the crunchy crust and meringues — was just what I was looking for.

Some baker’s notes:

• • The brown butter crust recipe is adapted from French pastry expert Paule Caillat, by way of Food52. It’s an incredibly forgiving recipe that doesn’t require much work — no rolling or kneading — but involves a weird step of sticking a heatproof bowl (like a Pyrex bowl) in the oven. Go with it. It works out. I promise. The original recipe says you can make 6 tartlets from the recipe, but literally every time I’ve made it I’ve ended up with 5. Probably because I like my crusts a little thicker.

• • When cooking the lime cream curd ingredients, be sure to use a glass bowl instead of a metal one. The metal will react with the citrus fruit and give your tart a faint, metallic taste. You don’t want that.

• • The recipe for the lime cream curd requires that you use an immersion blender to blend butter into the lime curd. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender. You can also whisk the butter in by a handheld electric whisk or by hand, but it’ll take longer and you might hate your life. But it’s so worth it. Really. You’ll have a little lime cream leftover after you fill the tarts — I ended up putting the cream in ramekins and topping with some meringues. My housemates loved these and they were gone within 5 minutes.

• I made my meringues from scratch (using a variation of the meringue recipe I posted in my 12 Days of Christmas Desserts ebook), but it’s completely unnecessary and time consuming. You can use store bought meringues and it’ll taste the same, I promise. Just be sure to use mini meringues like these guys.

posted by Michelle Lopez on April 9, 2014 (last updated Apr 1, 2020)

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