Ingredients Required:
To prepare the pastry, you will need:
– 150g of standard flour
– 85g of butter
– A mix of 30g caster sugar and 15g icing sugar
– The yolk of one egg (reserve the egg white for brushing later)
For the tart filling:
– 3 lemons
– Double cream, 230ml
– 230g of white caster sugar
– 4 large-size eggs and 2 large-size egg yolks
– 2 tablespoons of caster sugar for brûlée-ing
How to prepare the pastry:
Firstly, take a large bowl and mix the flour and the two types of sugar in it. Take your block of butter and grate it into the bowl. Use your fingers to mix the ingredients, until they start looking like breadcrumbs and all the lumps of butter are completely mixed in. Add the yolk of an egg to it and combine until you have a smoothly-textured dough. Wrap it up in cling film and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.
Followingly, take it out from the refrigerator and knead it gently until it becomes flexible. Dust your countertop with some flour and roll the dough until you get a thickness of about 2mm. Take a nine-inch tart tin and place the rolled out dough into it. Make sure to press it gently into the corners and edges, leaving a bit of extra dough hanging out. Put it back into the refrigerator for another hour.
Later, preheat the oven up to 180 degrees. Use a sharp knife to clean up the extra dough edges. Place a large piece of tinfoil or baking paper inside the tart base and fill it up with baking beans or rice. Let it bake for 15 minutes. Afterwards, remove the beans, brush the tart with the saved egg white for sealing, and let it bake for another 6-8 minutes, until it gets a golden brown colour. Let it cool down completely.
For the tart filling, in a saucepan, put the cream and lemon peels (peeled using a vegetable peeler) over a medium flame. Let it warm up till it just begins to simmer. Then, leave it, with a cover, to infuse for 30 minutes.
Pour the cream into a bowl, adding sugar and lemon juice (roughly around 200ml), egg and egg yolks. Position the bowl over a pot of gently boiling water. Consistently whisk the mixture until it starts to produce steam and becomes too hot to touch for more than a second. Take it off the heat. Use a strainer to transfer the mixture into a pouring jug. Place the pastry shell into the oven and slightly pull out the oven rack, then pour in the filling. Slowly push the tart back inside and let it cook for 20-25 minutes, until it’s slightly firmed up. Allow it to cool down at room temperature.
For the brûlée effect, dust the caster sugar evenly over the tart. Caramelise the sugar using a blowtorch until it’s a lovely golden brown and starts to bubble.