Recipe: Lemon Curd Tart

The minute I saw the Orange Curd Tart recipe in the Coles magazine, I knew I had to try it. However, before my procrastinating self could get around to it, my co-supervisor's lemon tree started producing fruit at an alarming rate. He brought in bags and bags of them to work, and I thought it unfair not to at least attempt doing something with them.

The first I tried was a lemon-flavoured modification of this cake, which turned out surprisingly well, considering that I ran out of ground nuts and had to add extra semolina instead. Spurred by this success, I decided to modify a recipe which I had never tried before.

It didn't go too badly either!

Lemon Curd Tart
Adapted from this recipe from the Coles winter magazine for 2012

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup caster sugar
125 g unsalted butter, diced or grated
1 egg yolk
2-3 tbs ice water

Filling
4 eggs
3/4 cup cream
1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice, strained
1/4 cup pineapple juice, strained
2 tsp lemon zest, finely grated

Candied lemons
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 large lemon, thinly sliced

Mix flour, sugar and butter. Pulse with a food processor or rub with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg yolk and just enough water to form a soft dough. Shape dough into a disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Place dough on a well-floured surface. Roll out dough until about 3 mm thick. Carefully lift up dough and ease into a 23 cm x 3 cm round loose-based tart pan. Gently press pastry into pan. Trim edges with a knife (set trimmed dough aside; see additional notes). Refrigerate for another 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Prick the base and sides of the dough with a fork. Line pastry with baking paper and fill with rice, beans or pie weights. Blind bake for 15 minutes, then remove baking paper and weights and bake for a further 10-15 minutes, until the pastry is lightly golden. Remove from oven and cool.

In a large bowl, mix all the filling ingredients. Whisk with an electric mixer until combined and a little frothy. Pour into tart shell and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top of the filling is lightly browned.

Meanwhile, prepare the candied lemons. Mix water and sugar; stir gently over low heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes until the syrup has thickened. Add lemon slices and simmer for a further 5 minutes, until the slices are soft and have shrunk a little. Remove from heat.

Arrange lemon slices on top of tart and serve with syrup on the side.

Additional notes

The lemon version I made was still fairly sweet, so I would recommend halving the sugar in the filling when preparing an orange tart.

You can use the leftover pastry to make shortbread! Shape the dough into a rectangle and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Cut into fingers, prick on both sides with a fork dust with a little caster sugar. Bake in the 180°C oven for 30 minutes, until the shortbread starts to brown around the edges. Allow to cool completely before consuming (this is the most difficult step).