Sunday Feast № 13 | Tarte au Citron: The "ooh la la" of Lemon Tart

I guess I could wax poetic about spring and sunshine and how lemons are yellow like the sun in child's drawing and awaken with their tangy freshness and tartness. All beautiful and true, but not quite were my head was at.    I have not made a desert in eons, and especially one that requires some layering where one layer is the dough, pastry dough. Dough can taste doughy if mishandled, and with mounts of sugar to boot, it's a disaster. "But lemons might help the "lemon"! Dress up the disaster!" Alas, that was just wishful thinking. Yes, I've made some baking mistakes. The best way to address this situation was head on, and try again, sweetly and lemon-y.    At $1 for 10 lemons, and more sugar types than my kitchen has seen not just in years but ever, the weekend called for a lemon tart with sweet pastry made from scratch. Reminiscent of pasta making, the flour well contained what became effectively a goop-y mess of butter, sugar, and eggs, all stuck to my fingers. Flour saved my perturbed sanity as the mix finally coalesced into a ball of smooth dough ready for chilling after I chilled myself and summoned patience. Exhale. Rolling it out - easy. Lining a tart tin with it - no problem. Shell baking - fingers crossed and exhale regardless. Mixing and pouring the filling - good to go. Final bake and cooling - not fast enough.   It was worth it. The recipe is from “The Food of France: A Journey for Food Lovers”. I stuck to one set of measurement units (grams and milliliters). It is baking after all where precision serves a novice or a scaredy-cat. Leftover pastry or filling? No worries! There are solutions for that. Now watch me go pro! OK OK. Not quite that ready.

Fun with the leftovers Filling Preheat the oven to 180°C/355°F. Using small oven proof cups or ramekins, spoon in the filling to fill each. Place the cups or ramekins in a baking dish and pour enough close to boiling or boiling water into the dish to come halfway up to the sides of the cup or ramekin. Cook for 25 min or until set. Remove from the oven and baking dish, cool completely and then refrigerate for couple of hours. Sweet pastry Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to thickness similar to that when rolled out for the tart. Cut out shapes - I cut 4.5 cm/~2 in circles, rolled the remains into a ball and rolled out again, cut circles and repeated as often as needed till all the pastry was used. Place shapes on a floured baking tray - they can be relatively close to each other but not touching - and bake for ~15 min or till golden. Remove and cool on a rack.

Sweet pastry 340 g plain all-purpose flour small pinch of salt 150 g unsalted butter 90 g icing/confectioner's sugar 2 eggs beaten Filling 4 eggs 2 egg yolks 285 g caster/superfine sugar 185 ml thick (double/heavy) cream a.k.a. heavy whipping cream 250 ml lemon juice finely grated zest of 3 lemons

Sift the flour and salt onto a work surface and make a well in the center. Put the butter into the well and peck at it with finger tips and thumb until it is very soft. Add the sugar to the butter and mix together. Add eggs to the butter and mix together. Gradually incorporate flour, flicking it onto the mixture and then chopping through it until it is a rough dough. Bring together with your hands and knead a few times to make a smooth dough. Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Butter and lightly flour a 23 cm/9 in round loose-base fluted tart tin. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface into a 0.5-0.7 cm/0.2-0.3 in thick circle, then roll out the pastry to line the tart tin, gently shaping it around the sides of the tin. Trim the edge and pinch up the pastry edge to make an even border raised slightly above the rim of the tin. Chill for 20 min in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. To make the filling, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks and sugar. Add the cream, whisking all the time, and then add the lemon juice and zest. Take the chilled pastry lined tart tin out and line the pastry shell with a crumpled piece of grease-proof paper and baking beads or dried beans or dry rice to weight the paper and pastry down. Blind bale for 10 min, then remove the paper and beads/beans/rice and bake for further 5 min, or until the pastry is just cooked but still pale. Remove from the oven and reduce oven temperature to 150°C/300°F. Put the tin on a baking tray and carefully pour the filling into the pastry case. Return to the oven for 35-40 min, or until the filling has set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before serving. Serves 8.