This french classic has to be one of my all-time favourite desserts. The very thought of it is mouth-watering, the crisp slightly sweet pastry and the oh so sharp lemon curd filling. This is always a hit with guests as long as you don't tell them quite how many calories they are consuming!
Ingredients
sweet pastry:
360 g plain flour
a pinch of salt
180 g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
110 g icing sugar
3 medium egg yolks
For the filling:
finely grated zest and juice of 8 un-waxed lemons
350 g caster sugar
6 whole medium eggs
9 medium egg yolks
300 g softened unsalted butter
Start by making the pastry. Pulse the flour, salt and butter in a food processor until the mix resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Now carefully add the icing sugar and the egg yolks and mix together. The pastry should bind together very quickly. Remove from the bowl and wrap in cling film and refrigerate ideally for 1 hour.
Now pre-heat the oven to 180 C. On a flour dusted surface, roll out the pastry, and carefully line a greased, 30 cm loose-bottomed flan tin. Push the pastry into the corners. Now cover with tin foil add some dried pulses or rice and bake blind for 20 minutes, removing the tin foil and contents for the last 5 minutes. The pastry should just be turning a light golden colour. Now leave to cool.
Whilst baking the pastry, we can turn our attention to the filling. Firstly place the juice and zest of the lemons, the sugar, egg and egg yolks in a large saucepan over a very low heat ( a diffuser would help here). Whisk moderately until the eggs have broken up and all the sugar has dissolved.
Take half of the softened butter and add to the pan, continuing to whisk. The eggs will start to cook and the mixture will soon start to coat the back of a spoon. At this point add the remaining butter and maintain the stirring. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens considerably. Please keep stirring as we do not want the mixture to curdle.
Now remove from the heat, place the pan on a cold surface and continue stirring until the mixture is lukewarm.
Whilst the lemon mixture is cooling, raise the oven temperature to 220 C.
Pour or spoon in the mixture into the pastry base, filling to just below the top of the pastry. Place in the top of the oven and cook until the top of the mixture starts to brown in places. This should take between 8 and 12 minutes depending upon the size of the oven.
Remove from the oven, and allow to cool. The lemon mixture will set beautifully smooth and quite firm.
Serve quite thin slices (don't worry, they'll all be back for seconds!) with a little creme fraiche on the side.
This is a dessert to be ate slowly, savouring each and every mouthful!
Enjoy, I know you will !
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