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Rich Lemon Tart

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Lemon Tart

I’m celebrating a milestone birthday in a mere handful of weeks. I can’t help but ponder what I want for rest of my life. What do I want to do – for a living; as a passion? Where should I live? Who do I want to be? How will I leave my mark? Who do I want by my side? That Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime,” has been running through my brain this week.

And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house
And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well how did I get here?

In truth, I don’t know what I want – and haven’t a clue how I ended up here. My chosen path isn’t clear to me – I just know this isn’t it. Not having a clear notion of what one wants for their life is fine at 18, not so much when one has less than half her years remaining.
So, I bake tarts and ponder life.


Rich Lemon Tart


Ingredients

    FILLING
  • 1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons lemon zest
  • 1 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 1 1/3 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs and 2 egg yolks
  • pinch salt
  • 1 ¾ sticks unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • ½ teaspoon gelatin
    • CRUST
  • 1 1/3 cups All-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cups sugar
  • ¾ teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions

  1. Make Lemon Curd: Whisk together zest, juice, sugar, eggs, and salt in a saucepan. Add butter all at once and cook over moderately low heat, whisking constantly until curd is very thick and first bubbles appear on the surface, about 10 minutes. Pour curd through a sieve into a bowl. Cover and chill.
  2. Make Crust: Heat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, sugar, zest and salt. Add melted butter and stir together until dough forms a ball. Press dough on bottom and up sides of 9” tart pan. Prick bottom of shell with fork and pre-baked until golden, 20-30 minutes.
  3. Assemble Tart: Whisk together heavy whipping cream with gelatin. Add 2/3 of lemon curd to whipping cream and fill tart pan almost full. Finish with a layer of pure curd. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Obsessed

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Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart

A baking obsession isn’t necessarily a bad thing – unless you’re compelled to sample each of your creations. Then, it can be detrimental, indeed. In the last 12 hours, I’ve managed to bake and devour two lemon tarts, one coconut tart, one and a half plum tarts and two apple tarts – all with the wrong crust.

I commanded myself to put the tarts aside today, step outside, run errands, exercise, get some sun, leaving the crust dilemma for another day. Instead, I’m on my second crust recipe today without any desire to step outside. Yesterday, I was using a version of Amanda Hesser’s no roll pie crust. I erroneously thought substituting heavy cream for the milk would result in a richer crust, but my attempts crumbled in my fingers.  Now, after re-referring to Gisslen’s Profession Baking, I’m convinced that my “improvement” was my downfall. Flour needs liquid to create that much maligned pastry glue, gluten, to hold it all together. I’ve moved back to her crust as written and I really love the crumbly texture, but I don’t know if it will hold up to the fumbling hands of 18 year old culinary school interns at the Steakhouse.  Next up – side by side comparisons of Amanda’s crust and Pate Sucree.