Lemon Tart

Pressure?

Pressure is for tyres my Mom will always say. There's no need to put yourself under pressure. But I don't heed her words and put myself under pressure is exactly what I did this month. I had read the recipe for Marco Pierre White's Lemon Tart, some time ago when I say it in Roger Pizey's book, World Class Cakes. I knew the minute it came up for choice with the Cake Slice Bakers, it would be what I picked. Having spotted it on June's list. I gave it no more thought.. until I came to bake it.

I picked the hottest day of the year ever to make this tart. Irish people don't get really great weather. We get pockets of sunshine here and there, but global warming stepped up a notch this week and we got temperatures hotter than the Mediterranean. I am not complaining about the weather (Irish people also do a lot of that!!) but merely stating that the heat put me under pressure...

Not great when you are trying to keep pastry cold!

Anyway... this tart was a pure delight! It has this light, lemon flavour that tasted so much better the following day. I did have some trouble with this tart from the start, but the spoils at the end were delicious.

During the baking process I dropped my bowl of zest into the filling bowl, resulting in this crazy splash spillage of sticky lemon filling. No process photos as a result but I do plan this again so will pop them in as soon as! The recipe also called for way more filling than was actually needed, I had a lot left over, even after the spillage so I have adjusted this for you in the recipe below. I also substituted my own Short Crust Recipe in for Marco's because I didn't like how the pastry sounded in the book and didn't have the 24 hours to rest it either!!

Marco Pierre White's Lemon Tart- 

adapted from page 246 World Class Cakes

Short Crust Pastry

240g plain flour

50g icing sugar

150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.

Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge until needed.

Lemon Filling

225ml double whipping cream

6 large eggs

240g caster sugar

finely grated zest of 2 lemons

juice of 2 large lemons

In the bowl whisk the cream and mix until it forms a ribbon.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and sugar until smooth.

Add the lemon juice to the egg and sugar batter and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture through a strainer onto the cream.

Whisk everything together and then add the lemon zest.

Let the bowl of filling stand in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Take the pastry out of the refrigerator, grease up a 10 inch, loose bottom, round pie dish with some butter.

Roll out a larger circle than your pie dish and place it into your dish pressing the sides gently as you go. Cut off any excess. Chill for the remaining time on the filling.

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F or gas Mark 3.

Remove the pastry shell from the refrigerator and line with parchment paper, fill with baking beads and bake blind for about 20 minutes, or until the inside of the tart becomes golden brown.

Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, then carefully remove the beads and the parchment paper.

Turn the oven down to 120C/250F or Gas Mark 2.

Remove your chilled lemon filling from the refrigerator and whisk again. Pour the lemon filling into the warm pastry shell and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes. There should be a slight wobble in the centre when it is cooked.

Remove from the oven and cool completely on a cooling rack.

Once the tart is fully cooled remove it from the baking dish and douse in icing sugar.

*yours will not turn out as brown as mine on the top.. My oven was too hot for the tart when I put it in. Ensure you have sufficiently cooled your oven to avoid this. 

So what do you think? Another Cake Slice Bakers success month from World Class Cakes? I think so.. despite the pitfalls and stops and starts I encountered. There wasn't much left by the time I got to photographing it.. that's a good sign I reckon!

Please scroll down to see all the beautiful cakes that were baked this month, and don't forget to check out our Facebook Page. Also, if you are interested in joining the #TheCakeSliceBakers, please send an email to Felice at thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com, and she will send you all the information you need! We are a great bunch of bakers, happy to make new friends!

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