Recipe: Tarte au citron

Q: What could be greater after a dinner of spaghetti carbornara (Luke's and my staple dinner in France) than a tarte au citron?
A: Absolutely nothing.

Luke and I weren't feeling quite satisfied after dinner last night so Luke suggested we bake ourselves a little treat in the form of a tarte au citron. Neither of us had ever attempted this before, but how hard could it be? After finding a recipe online we found that in truth it was very simple. All you really need are some basic ingredients like flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and of course lemons.

The two things that make this recipe hard are the prep work (which isn't substantial but still zesting three lemons doesn't happen in 2 seconds) and waiting the 20-30 minutes after it's in the oven to eat it. It seriously smells so good! Luke and I had a lot of fun with this recipe and a great time making it together. It probably didn't turn out perfect, but it didn't matter to us in the slightest, the flavour was phenomenal!

Our yummy tarte!

Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy

Tarte au Citron

 

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

• 150 g (5oz) plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 100 g (3 1/2oz) unsalted butter
• 50 g (1 1/4oz) caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• Few drops of vanilla extract*

 *Luke and I didn't have vanilla extract and it tasted fine just the same

For the filling:

• 3 medium eggs
• 100 g (3 1/2oz) caster sugar
• 142ml carton double cream (that's heavy whipping cream)
• Finely zested rind and juice of 3 lemons
• 23 cm (9 in) fluted pie tin

Optional: Icing (Powder) sugar for dusting.

Method:

1. To make the pastry: Tip the flour and salt into a bowl, and add the butter, cut into chunks. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and then add the egg and vanilla extract, and mix to bind the ingredients together.
2. Tip the dough out onto a floured worktop and knead it very lightly to give a smooth surface, then roll it out and use it to line the pie tin. Chill the pastry case for at least 15 minutes. Set the oven to 190 C. Bake the pastry roughly 15 minutes, or until light golden. Remove from oven and reduce oven temperature to 180 C.
3. To make the filling: Beat the eggs, then add sugar, cream, lemon rind, and juice, and mix well. Pour mixture into the pastry case, filling it almost to the top.
4. Bake the tart in the centre of the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the edges of the filling have set and it is just slightly wobbly in the centre. Remove from the oven, slide the pie tin on to a wire rack and leave the tart to cool in the tin for about 20-30 minutes. Remove from the tin and leave to cool completely. Chill the tart well, and dust it with icing sugar just before serving.  
   

Erin x

Find the original recipe at Women's Weekly Recipes