A bright, simple lemon tart
A sweet treat that can be served all year round. Kim particularly loves to whip this up using winter lemons to bring some brightness to the table after a meal of roasted root veggies or meats. Serve with fresh ice cream and any seasonal topping of your liking.
Ingredients
Pastry
- 300 g plain flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 150 g chilled unsalted butter, diced
- zest of one lemon, finely grated
- 5 large egg yolks
- ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
- 2 tbs cold water
Lemon Curd
- Zest and juice of 5 lemons
- 6 large eggs
- 250 g caster sugar
- 60 g chilled unsalted butter, diced
Method
- To make the pastry, put flour, salt, butter and lemon zest into a food processor. Blitz until mixture resembles breadcrumbs and butter is completely incorporated. Add yolks, vanilla and water and pulse until dough comes together. Do not overwork. Tip onto a lightly floured bench and form into a ball. Wrap and chill for 1 hour.
- Roll out pastry on a lightly floured bench until 3mm thick and about 30cm in diameter, or large enough to line a 20cm tart case. Butter and flour the case and line with pastry, gently pressing into the corners and trimming the overhang. Place a sheet of baking paper over the pastry and fill with rice, dried beans or baking weights, and blind bake for 20 minutes at 190°C. Remove weights and paper, return to the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes. Cool.
- To make the lemon curd filling, whisk lemon juice and zests, eggs and sugar together in a medium saucepan and cook over a gentle heat until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. If available, use a thermometer to take mixture to 80°C. Remove from heat and whisk in the cold, diced butter. Strain through a fine sieve into a heatproof jug.
- Pour curd mixture into the cooled pastry shell and cook at 130°C for 15 minutes. The filling should still have a slight wobble to it when cooked. Leave at room temperature or chill, and serve with vanilla ice-cream and poached rhubarb.
