Lemon Tart

A friend of mine had a good harvest from the trees in her backyard and was so kind to give me a bagful of lemons recently. My own pitiful little lemon tree unfortunately wasn't fruitful at all this year after giving me a good supply last year.

Well, what do you do with so much lemons? Lemon tart, of course! This is my first attempt at making lemon tart, though I've made egg tarts many times before. I love the extra hit of zesty and tangy lemon flavour and it gives you that extra lift to your taste bud.

To make the tart look even more inviting, I've decorated it with whipped cream rosettes and lemon slices.

Hope you like it too. Bon Appetit!

Lemon Tart
(makes a 20cm round tart)
recipe adapted from Rita Ho's cookbook


Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry/Pate Brisee
300g cake flour
20g icing sugar
225g unsalted butter, chilled
3g salt
1 egg yolk
30ml ice water
butter, to grease the tart pan

Lemon custard
5 eggs
1 egg yolk
120g castor sugar
200ml heavy whipping cream
3 lemons

Decoration
icing sugar to dust
heavy whipping cream, whipped
lemon, cut into thin slices


Method

Lemon custard

1) Rinse and wipe water off lemon. With a grater, grate zest off lemons. Do not grate too hard to avoid getting into the bitter pith. Cut lemons in halves and squeeze out juice. Mix juice with grated lemon zest. Set aside.

2) Beat eggs and egg yolk. Blend with lemon zest, lemon juice and castor sugar. Stir until sugar melted. Seal with cling film. Chill in a fridge overnight.

Pate Brisee

1) Cut chilled unsalted butter in cubes. Chill and set aside.

2) Sieve cake flour, icing sugar and salt twice. In a blender, blend the flour mixture with butter cubes at low speed until fine.

3) Continue to blend at low speed, adding egg yolk and ice water. Blend until incorporated. 

4) On a clean working table, with your wrist, divide dough into portions and gently knead to a whole piece of dough again. Seal with cling film. Freeze in a fridge for at least 1 hour.

5) Grease the tart pan with a little butter.

6) Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll out thawed dough to 2-3mm thick. Place onto the tart pan. Cut excess dough off the edges. With a fork, poke some holes on the dough. Chill for 1/2 hour.

7) Preheat oven at 180C. Take out tart pastry from fridge. Cover pastry with baking paper and place baking beans (can be replaced by beans and rice) on top. Bake for 15 mins and remove from oven.

8) Remove baking paper and baking beans. Bake for another 5 mins. Take out and leave to cool.

Baking

1) Remove lemon filling from the fridge. Mix well with heavy whipping cream. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

2) Pour filling onto the pastry tart until 90% full. Bake at 180C for about 30 mins or until filling is just firm. (If you're using smaller tart pans, reduce the baking time. Just ensure the filling just gets set, not overdone.)

3) Let the lemon tarts cool. Remove from the pan. 

4) Dust with icing sugar. Pipe whipping cream rosettes on the tart and decorate with thin lemon slices on top.

A well-deserved slice for tea ...

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"