In the early years of Carême we ran a little patisserie stall at the Barossa Farmers, these tarts were our most popular item. The recipe originates from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. The recipe takes the traditional lemon curd process and reverses it by adding butter at the end to create a lighter creamier finish. You can use it as a spread, as a layer in a sponge or in Vanilla Slice in place of custard.
Lemon Curd Tarts
Serves: 12 to 24 mini tarts or 1 large 23cm tart
Prep/Cook Time: 1 hour plus cooling
Skill Level: Easy to Intermediate
Ingredients
- 1 x 435g pack Carême Sweet Vanilla Shortcrust, 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).
- Unroll sheet of pastry, dust with flour then cut 12 circles using an 8cm pastry cutter. If you re-roll the trim you will get another 12 circles.
- Line tart tin with the pastry circles. Place the second tin on top, this acts a weight, place on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes until pastry is golden. Carefully remove top tin and if not golden on base of tart return to oven for 5 minutes. Leave to cool before removing shells from tin.
- 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 a hand blender add the butter in five batches blending until fully incorporated between each addition, do not add all the butter at once. 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. Left over lemon cream can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, beat with a wooden spoon before serving to restore creamy texture.
- 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. Leftover lemon cream can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days.
For our little tarts we used two of the Bake Master 12 cup perfect crust shallow baking pan. The tart shells can be prepared the day before, store in an airtight container. The lemon cream can be used the same day or stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 5 days.
Share this recipe
Looking for more great recipes?
Download our recipe eBooks!
