Lemon Tart

It's time for a not-so-healthy recipe. I'm still trying to get the hang of baking because I want a decent list of classic desserts in my repertoire. This time I wanted to bake a tart from scratch. Who doesn't love a good tart? To enable this to happen I had to first go out and by a loose bottomed tart case and now there will be no stopping me. 

I searched high and low online for an easy recipe and found Gregg Wallace's recipe on the BBC Good food website. I lifted his recipe mainly because his pastry quantities result in double the dose and you basically freeze half of it for another day - 2 tarts with one stone & so on. Genius.

However I decided not to follow his instructions too closely as I don't have the patience or the time to rub flour and butter together till they look like breadcrumbs. It's too messy and takes too long! I saw Delia online advocating using a food processor for that stage of pastry making and if it's good enough for Delia then it's good enough for me! I also played it by ear when pulsing the processor and adding little bits of water at a time to get the pastry to bind into a ball and so I didn't follow his recipe exactly - a bit risky but the final result was a delicious lemon tart. The verdict from those who sampled it [i.e. my other half] was that the pastry could be thinner on the base and the filling could be more lemon rich but all in all, for my first attempt, I was pretty pleased with the result!

Pastry ingredients: [For 2 batches]

Plain Flour 500g [plus a bit to flour the work surface]
Icing sugar 140g [plus a bit to decorate at the end]
Unsalted butter 250g [cold and chopped into cubes]
Egg yolks x 4

Filling ingredients:

Juice of 4 [maybe 5] lemons
Lemon zest from 2 of the lemons
Caster sugar 140g
Double cream 150ml
Whole eggs x 5

Equipment:
Food processor
Weighing machine
Loose bottomed tart tin
Zester
Rolling pin

Method:
1. Put the flour and icing sugar and the cold cubes of butter in the food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg yolks one at a time and pulse each time
3. Add a splash of water at a time and keep pulsing until the whole lot come together in a lump of dough
4. Take it out onto a clean floured surface and flatten the dough with the palm of your [clean and washed] hands. Put half in some cling film and freeze for another day. Put the other half in cling film and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.
5. After 30min take the dough out of the fridge and use the rolling pin to flatten it to the thickness of a pound coin

[ I don't think I was brave enough to thin it out sufficiently - I was more worried about trying to transfer the rolled out dough onto the case! This I managed by lifting the pastry up on the rolling pin and then laying it over the case gently.]

6. Gently cover the tart case with the pastry and gently squish it in against the edges & base.
7. Trim off the excess and prick the base with a fork. Put the case back in the fridge for another 30min.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and place a large square of baking paper on the middle shelf of the oven [to catch any spills]

8. After 30min take the case out from the fridge, place a piece of foil on the pastry and pour in some rice/dried beans
9. Bake this for 10min at 160 degress C
10. Remove the foil - discard it and the contents
11. Put the case back in the oven for another 15 minutes to become biscuity

15. Make the filling by combining all the ingredients apart from the zest & gently stirring with a fork until it's all smooth. Pass the mixture through a sieve and then add the zest.

16. Put the filling mixture in a pouring jug and take it to the oven. Then pour into the tart case right to the top very carefully.
17. Bake for 30 min - till its just set but still has a little wobble.
18. Cool it completely before transferring out of the case and then sprinkle it with a little icing sugar. Et Voila! Tart-tastic.

I am definitely feeling more confident with pastry after this recipe and will be attempting an apple tart next time! Luckily there is a batch of pastry already in the freezer! Brilliant!