Tarte au Citron

This lemon tart is one of my favourites. The lemon curd is a little bit tart and a generous layer of confectioner's sugar makes it perfect. Of course, you can always add more sugar into the curd to make it sweeter. But my favourite part of this tart is the crust. It's so flaky and buttery! I will definitely use this in other recipes. There's no sugar added into the crust and maybe that makes it so delicious.

  For a flaky pastry crust:

• 1¼ cups (200 grams / 7 oz) of plain all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 125 grams (4¼ oz) of cold butter, cut into small cubes
• 125 ml (4¼ fl oz) of cold milk
• 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar 

For the lemon filling

• The finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• ½ cup (125 ml / 4¼ fl oz) of fresh lemon juice, approximately 3 lemons
• ½ cup (100 grams / 3½ oz) of caster sugar
• 80 grams (2¾ oz) of butter, cut into cubes
• 2 large free range eggs
• 2 large free range egg yolks

  Preheat the oven to 180°C, 350°F or  4.

  For the pastry:

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl or food processor.

Cut the butter into small cubes and rub into the flour either with your hands or using the food processor, until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Combine the milk and vinegar together.

Add the milk to the flour mixture to make a soft moist dough dotted with butter.

On a lightly floured bench or board bring the mixture just until it forms a ball.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Roll out the pastry until it’s approximately 5 mm (1/8 inch) thick.

Place a 23cm (9 inch) loose bottom tart tin on a baking sheet/ try and line with the pastry, docking the bottom several time with a fork and trimming away the excess pastry.

Line the pastry with parchment paper and blind baking beans and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the tart is lightly golden.

Remove the beans and paper ready for the filling.

For the Lemon curd filling:

In a medium sized non-reactive saucepan, gently heat the lemon juice, grated zest, sugar and butter until it has melted and the sugar dissolved.

In a small bowl whisk together the eggs and the yolks to combine.

Pour a little of the warm lemon mixture into the eggs, stirring constantly, to warm them gently - this way they don’t get to big of a shock and are less likely to scramble.

Pour and scrape out the warmed eggs back into the saucepan with the remaining lemon mixture and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and almost begins to gently bubble around the edges.

Strain the lemon curd filling though a mesh sieve directly into the pre-baked tart shell, removing the zest.

Press through with a rubber spatula to be sure to get all the flavour.

Smooth the curd filling and pop it into the oven for five minutes, you simply want to set the curd.

Remove from the oven and let cool.

Just before serving sprinkle a good layer of icing sugar over the top of the curd filling.

Oh, and this week I baked this cake for my friend's birthday. I'm so happy because everybody enjoyed it!