Le Provider's Rhubarb Gelée Tarts

December 7, 2009

If you’re looking for a sweet something to pass round towards the end of a pre-Christmas cocktail party, I can recommend these little rhubarb tarts.

The recipe comes courtesy of Alexia Routley who runs a fledgling personal chef business, Le Provider

Having studied at Le Cordon Bleu, Alexia was keen to create a business involving food. Her partner has a farm near Kyneton and she is able to source meat and produce from the farm and the house garden as well as genuine free range eggs from the domestic chooks.

Her service includes preparing anything from a romantic dinner for two, a complete dinner party or canapes for a cocktail. She will bring in the dishes or cook at the client's home. And she will either stay and plate up, provide waiters and clean up, or leave a short list of instructions for the host or hostess to complete the meal - "and claim it as their own work, if they wish," she says.

Alexia was about to embark on a cocktail party for 120 when I talked with her last week in her Port Melbourne apartment and she had been busy filling Christmas orders for plum puddings and shortbread.

Le Provider's Rhubarb Gelée Tarts

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 egg at room temperature, beaten
1/4 cup diced room temperature unsalted butter
4 stalks rhubarb
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup brown sugar
fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon boiling water
1 teaspoon gelatine or 1 gelatine leaf

Sift and combine flour, caster sugar and unsalted butter.

Rub butter into dry ingredients using fingertips, until the flour and butter form a breadcrumb like consistency. Add beaten egg to mixture to bring it together to form a thick dough.

Knead until a smooth yellowy paste forms, then roll thinly and roughly shape into greased small tart-cases.

Bake at 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes depending upon your oven, until light golden brown.

Dice rhubarb into small pieces. Place into a small saucepan with 1/4 cup hot water and brown sugar. Bring to boil and simmer for eight minutes, or until soft.

Combine soaked gelatine leaf or granulated gelatine with 1 tbs boiling water and thinly sliced fresh mint, mix well together until clear.

Place the rhubarb into the cooled pastry cases with a bit of their syrup and top with the gelatine mixture. Place in fridge to cool and set.

Half an hour later spoon the remaining gelatine mixture onto the tarts, coating right to the edges of the pastry, giving the tarts a nice shiny appearance. Cool in fridge.

Serve with clotted cream and a fresh mint leaf as a garnish.

Recipe: Alexia Routley Photos: ©Pat Churchill

More from Le Provider menus - arancini

Poached quail eggs on potato rosti with celery salt

Medium rare Angus beef from the farm with capers.

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