Tarte au Citron -this time written by Chef Sam and photos by Susan Gish – we switched roles this time!
With updated ingredients
The almost easy Tarte au Citron recipe I’ve been making this tart for almost 18 years and I still go back to the recipe I found in Cuisine At Home back in 2002. The filling is very tart and lemony. One of the first times I brought this to a friend’s house, their 13 year old son had a piece, said, ‘This is really, really too tart. Can I have another piece?’ The big thing to remember is to do your mise en place before you start and you’ll be fine. I’m putting the essential equipment, proportions and full ingredient list at the end.
Let’s start with the crust. After trying almond crusts, hazelnut crusts, pre-made store bought crusts, it turns out that making your own paté sablé is the best one to use. Lots of people are freaked out by crust but it’s really easy – patience and cold butter are your friends and will not let you down. That and using your hands to make it; not a food processor, not a stand mixer, not a blender, not a pastry cutter – your hands.
Weigh out the flour, the sugar, and the butter. Cut the butter into small cubes. Whisk the egg with the water in a small bowl until just combined, put aside.
Combine the flour and the salt in a bowl. Work the cubed butter into the flour with your fingers until it looks and feels like damp sand. Then mix in the sugar. Add the egg and water mixture and using a wooden spoon, mix until there’s a ball of dough in the bowl. Take the dough ball, flatten it into a disk and cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour. Butter the sides and bottom of the tart pan and sprinkle it with flour.
Flour the worktop and roll out the dough until it’s 2-3 mm thick. Put the rolled out dough into the tart pan. Trim excess dough by rolling the rolling pin over the top of the pan and then press it gently into the sides of the pan. Don’t stretch the dough or it will shrink when cooked. There should be enough dough to patch any cracks or holes. Using a fork, ‘dock’ the dough all over the bottom of the pan (put little holes in it). Put the pan into the freezer for an hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC/425ºF. Put a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough, add the pie weights and cook for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Take it out of the oven and let it cool.
You can now take a break or not.
If you decided to press on, you should start on the filling now. Great, there’ll be a lemon tart very soon.
Lower the oven temp to 165ºC/325ºF.
Weigh out the sugar and butter and cut the butter into small cubes. Put the sugar into the heavy bottomed saucepan.
Break the eggs into a bowl, separate the other eggs (save the egg whites to make meringues!) and add the yolks to the bowl.
Take the lemons and zest them. Not little strips of zest, but fluffy microplaned zest. Probably two or three lemons worth. Juice the lemons, and then strain the juice (makes for smoother filling and prevents surprise lemon seeds in the tart).
Set a timer for 12 minutes.
Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, a pinch of salt, the strained lemon juice, and lemon zest together in the saucepan. Then add the cubed butter, and start stirring with a rubber or silicone spatula over medium-low heat. Don’t stop stirring! You want a smooth, creamy filling not lemon scrambled eggs. At about ten minutes the mixture should start to thicken. This is the critical moment because you don’t want a super firm filling, but one that is still pourable.
Remove the pan from the heat and using a semi-fine mesh strainer pour the filling into the pre-baked shell. Use the spatula to push the filling through the strainer. Slide the tart into the oven and cook for about 10 minutes, until the filling is just set. Any longer and it will be overdone, though still delicious. Let it cool completely before taking it out of the pan and transferring to a serving platter. You can make this one day, put it in the fridge and serve it the next day, though generally I can’t wait until the next day. I generally serve this plain, or garnished with slices of fresh strawberries or with a berry sauce on the side. Oh, and those egg whites you saved? Turn them into meringues.
Now the essential equipment, ingredients and proportions:
A tart pan with a removable bottom
Parchment paper
Pie weights or dry beans for baking the pastry shell
A good heavy bottomed stainless steel saucepan
A kitchen scale
Semi-fine mesh strainer
Silicone or rubber spatula
Pastry – Paté Sablé
300 g flour
150 g unsalted butter
60 g white sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
45g cold water
pinch of fine salt
Lemon Tart filling
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
115 g unsalted butter cubed
250g white sugar
300 ml fresh lemon juice (5 or 6 lemons depending on size)
2 tablespoons lemon zest
pinch of fine salt
Chef Sam & Susan Gish
aixcentric 
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