Lemon Tart

In the mood for a sour dessert? Give this lemon tart a try.

Ingredients:

(makes 1 tart in a standard pie form of ±26cm)

For the pie crust

• 250g wheat flour

• 125g very cold butter, cubed or grated

• ¼ tsp salt

• 1 organic egg

• 1 tbsp sugar

• A little bit of extra butter to grease your baking dish

For the lemon filling

• 3 lemons
  (You will need their juices and zest, so make sure you get organic, untreated lemons)

• 125g butter

• 160g sugar

• 5 eggs

Special Equipment Needed:

• Pie dish or spring form

• Optional: Food processor

Instructions:

For the crust

1. Make sure your ingredients are as cold as possible. Ideally, put the butter in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes

2. Preheat your oven to 180°C on conventional heat.

3. Grease your pie dish / spring form with butter or cooking spray and set aside.

4. On a work surface, mount your flour and create a little well in the middle.

5. Using a box grater, grate the butter over the flour. If you skipped step 1, you could cut it up in small cubes.

6. Add the salt, sugar, and egg.

7. Mix everything together and knead until a supple dough forms.
   Note: As an alternative to the above, you can add the ingredients to a food processor and pulse everything together until it has the texture of wet sand.

8. Press the dough into your pie dish.
   Note: Alternatively, you can shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes, before rolling it out using a rolling pin. However, we found that pressing it directly into the pie dish and evening things out with your hands or a flat-bottomed glass works just as well and saves some time.

9. Bake on the middle rack of your oven for ±25 minutes.
   Note: If you use a spring form instead of a pie dish, it helps to weigh down the dough. Crumple up a piece of parchment paper, un-crumple, and line your pie dish. Add pie weights or any suitable substitute (we use lentils & rice). This helps keep the crust in shape. If you opt for this method, remove the pie weights after the first 15 minutes of baking.

For the filling and assembly

1. Under very hot water, wash your lemons and dry them off.

2. Grate the zest of all three lemons and set aside.

3. Juice the lemons.

4. In a small pot, melt the butter over medium heat and add most of the lemon zest (keep some for decoration).

5. In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs, lemon juice, and sugar until slightly foamy.

6. Add the mixture to the lemon butter and heat everything very gently over medium heat until it thickens. Whisk frequently. This will take 10-15 minutes - be patient and don’t increase the heat. You don’t want to end up with lemony scrambled eggs.

7. Once the mixture has thickened to a pudding-like consistency, remove it from the heat and let it cool for 5-10 minutes while stirring often.

8. Finally, pour the mixture into your pre-baked pie crust and put everything back in the oven for an additional ±40 minutes.

9. Remove from the oven. It’s okay if your tart is still slightly jiggly in the center. It will set as it cools.

10. Let cool completely.

11. Decorate with the remaining lemon zest and optionally some powdered sugar.

Enjoy!