Lemon Cream Tarts

Recipes > Desserts, Finger Food

When we ran our little patisserie stall at the Barossa Farmers Market in the Carême early years, these tarts were always our most popular item, people still stop us today and wax lyrical about those ‘lemon tarts’… The recipe originates from the beautiful Tartine Bakery in San Francisco.
Step 7 to 12 uses the traditional stove top method to make the lemon cream. Step 13 to 14 is the Thermomix method.
Utensils: 10 x 8cm fluted tart tins or 1 x 23cm tart to serve 8

Serves: 10

Ingredients

445g Carême Sour Cream Shortcrust Pastry, defrosted
155ml lemon juice + zest of one lemon
3 large eggs
1 large yolk
170g caster sugar
225g unsalted butter cut into 2cm cubes
Crème fraiche to serve

Method

Preheat oven to 180c fan-forced (200c non-fan).
Tear off 4 strips of baking paper 12cm wide, cut each strip into 3 equal pieces.
Unroll sheet of pastry, dust with flour then peal off plastic sheet and dust the other side with flour. Using a 10cm pastry cutter cut 10 x circles, if you re-roll the trim you will get a further 3 circles.
Line tart tins with pastry, gently pushing the pastry into each tin. Place shells on a baking tray, line each one with the squares of baking paper and fill with baking weights or chickpeas.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until pastry is golden. Remove from oven and lift out weights using the baking paper
Pop back in the oven for a further 5 minutes to brown the base of the tarts. Leave to cool before removing from shell.
Before you begin the lemon cream fill a medium sized saucepan with about 5cm water and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile whisk the lemon juice, eggs, yolk and sugar together in a bowl.
Place the bowl over the saucepan of simmering water and continue to whisk for 12 to 15 minutes or until thick and your whisk leaves a trail through the curd.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool, leave for 10 minutes, occasionally stirring to release heat. Don’t let it go cold.
Using either a hand blender or countertop blender add the butter in five batches blending until fully incorporated between each addition.
Lastly beat in the lemon zest.
Transfer the lemon cream to a bowl and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours. When ready to serve spoon the lemon cream into the tart shells and top with a dollop of crème fraiche.
Thermomix Lemon Cream: Insert butterfly into Thermomix then add the lemon juice, zest, eggs, yolk and sugar, set temperature to 80c, speed 4, for 8 minutes. Remove butterfly, cool to 70c, add butter in 5 batches, blend each batch on speed 5 for 5 seconds after each addition.
Transfer the lemon cream to a bowl and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours.
When ready to serve spoon the lemon cream into the tart shells and top with a dollop of crème fraiche.
Tip: Left over lemon cream can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days.