Have you been craving a pastry? So have we, and let’s face it, home-made pastries are the best. But your grandmother isn’t walking through that door, so the allure of a local bakery can be tough to dissuade. Lucky for you, we’ve got an awesome lemon tart recipe that you can be proud of. This is a recipe that isn’t going to be a walk in the park, but when you’re finished, you’re going to have something special.
So put your mind to it, and grab those ingredients!
Lemon Verbena Tart with Almond Pastry
Serves 8.
Pastry:
- 2/3 cup sliced almonds
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons minced lemon zest
- ¼ cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons frozen unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch chunks
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon cold water
Lemon Curd Filling:
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 6 eggs
- Juice of 4 lemons, about 1 cup
- Minced zest of 2 lemons
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh lemon verbena
- Large bowl of ice water
- Sweetened whipped cream and lemon slices as garnish
Prepare the pastry. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Process almonds in work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade until finely chopped.
Add flour and pulse on/off 3-4 times to blend.
Add remaining ingredients and process until dough form a cohesive ball.
Turn dough out into a 10-inch removable bottom tart tin. Press dough into bottom up the side of the tin. Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes (or up to 2 hours) to firm it up. Prick dough all over with a fork and bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
Cool in tart tin on wire rack.
To make the Lemon Curd Filling: process sugar in work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade for 1 minute, or until very fine and powdery.
Add butter chunks and process until smooth, stopping to scrape down side of bowl once or twice. Add eggs and process to blend well. Add lemon juice, zest, and lemon verbena; process for 20 seconds, or until well blended.
Turn mixture out into a heavy 2-qyart saucepan. The filling will appear to be curdled, but will smooth out during cooking.
Cook over medium-low heat, whisking continuously, until mixture is very thick, about 14-15 minutes.
Do not allow the curd to boil!
Remove pan from heat and nestle into the bowl of ice water. Whisk vigorously until the curd is cool, about 5 minutes.
Turn the cooled curd out into pastry shell, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula*.
Refrigerate until well chilled, at least four hours. When ready to serve, carefully remove side of tart pan and slide pastry off the bottom of tin onto a serving plate. Slice into 8 wedges and top each serving with a rosette of sweet whipped cream and a half lemon slice.
*If you’d rather not have the specks of lemon verbena in the finished tart, place a wire mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the cooled lemon custard into the strainer. Using a rubber spatula stir the custard through the wire into the bowl. It will take a few minutes. Keep stirring until all that is left in the strainer is the specks of lemon verbena. Rinse and dry the rubber spatula, then scrape the strained custard from the bottom of the strainer.
