Lemon curd tart

The tart just after pouring in the curd.


I saw this the other day, and instantly knew - I needed to eat that. Now. I went and bought two lemons, and a bunch of butter, and set to. The only issue with making this tart, is that I knew ahead of time that Ed wasn't going to like it - he doesn't like curd-textured substances. Which meant that I was left to eat it all myself. Which is fantastic until I realized that there were close to two sticks of butter in this thing. This would be fine if I had any ability to use self-restraint in the face of good desserts... I don't. So I guess I knew ahead of time the self-loathing that would come after eating an entire lemon curd tart. Thats ok, it was worth it.

I used David Lebovitz's recipe on his blog for both the tart crust and the lemon curd. I've made lime curd before for my mojito cupcakes, and I remember trying both a regular version and a low-fat version, and I overcooked the regular version and didn't add enough sugar to the low-fat version, so basically I wasn't happy with either one in that case. In this case, I still had no idea how long to cook the curd, but since I was tasting it along the way, I figured it was thick enough after about 20 minutes or so, and even if it wasn't done, it tasted delicious as it was, so I'd happily lick the curd out of the pie crust if it didn't work out.


The crust was interesting - the recipe I used was rather unorthodox, to say the least - I melted the butter with oil and water in the oven, then dumped in the flour, mixed it around, and pressed it into the pie pan. It ended up being a very crumbly crust, and excessively buttery. The little shiny bits in that picture - those are butter bubbles that were still there after the crust had cooled. I also had issues keeping the crust flat, since my docking holes seemed to close back up thanks to all the butter, so I had to twice pull out the crust and re-dock it. In the end, while it was deliciously crumbly, it was much more work than a regular pie crust, and I didn't like how overly buttery it was. On day 2, though (I'm suprised there was any left on day 2), the crust was much less buttery, and the curd had hardened up a bunch, and it was absolutely amazing. Reminded me of a slightly tart lemon bar.
See the butter ooozing out of that crust...

I'm going to write out David Lebovitz's recipe, just because then its easier for me to find again when I plan on modifying this to make it perfect - which I have every intention of doing. Although maybe I should just stick with lemon bars since thats what I seem to like about this dessert...

Tart crust:

3 oz (6 tbs) butter, cut into cubes
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs oil
3 tbs water
1/8 tsp salt
1 rounded cup of flour

Preheat the oven to 410F.

Put the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt into a heat-proof bowl and put it in the oven until the butter bubbles and its a little brown around the edges. Take out the bowl, and dump in the flour. Be careful not to grab the bowl with bare hands, its 410 degrees. Thats hot. Stir around the flour until the dough comes together, and then dump it into a pie pan. Spread it with the back of the spoon, reserving about an almond-sized lump for repairing cracks later. Once the dough cools enough, use your palms and fingers to spread it evenly. Dock it liberally with a fork, and bake for 15 minutes until it is golden brown.

When you take the crust out, use the extra dough to repair any cracks (I had many cracks).

Lemon Curd
1/2C lemon juice, fresh squeezed
zest of one lemon
6 tbs butter, cut into cubes
1/2C sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks

Turn the oven down to 350F.

In a sauce pan, melt the butter with the sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Beat the eggs and egg yolks together in a separate bowl. Once the butter is melted, whisk about a third of the butter/lemon mixture into the eggs, whisking continually. This tempers the eggs. Add the tempered eggs into the sauce pan, and stir continually for the next 15-20 minutes, until the curd is thickened and pulls away from the pan as you stir it. I can't really get more exact than that...

I skipped the straining step because I like my chewy lemon peel bits, so I just poured the curd directly into the crust. David Lebovitz says to put it in the oven for 5 minutes to set, but I put it in there for 10 minutes to cook. It looked like a lemon bar (i.e. not smooth) when I took it out, and it was hard to let it cool before eating it. But you have to let it cool. Do not skip this step.

I found the curd delicious, maybe a tad too sweet, but still delicious. I had my face in the pan licking it clean, it was that good.

The cooked tart. Less pretty. Maybe if I'd just chilled it after its 5 minutes to set, it would have kept that smooth look. Oh well, it tasted good!

So the modifications I plan on making will involve a much less buttery crust, possibly more akin to lemon bars, actually I think I will probably modify this to basically be a lemon bar with a crumbly-not-very-sweet crust. We'll see how that goes...