Scrambled Eggs, Cheese, and Avocado Tortilla Bowl Recipe
September 16, 2025
Lemon Tart Recipe
What makes this Lemon Tart so excellent? It’s the lemon curd filling. It’s not too candy however not mouth-puckeringly bitter both, and so custardy it simply melts within the mouth. It is a traditional French tart that’s elegant and fairly as an image, but the filling is so simple as might be: simply eggs, sugar, butter and recent lemon!
Welcome again to the ultimate instalment of French Bistro Week! 🇫🇷 It is a week wherein I’m sharing all of the recipes it is advisable to recreate your very personal French Bistro expertise at dwelling. Right here’s the menu of recipes I shared:
-
Starter: Heat Goat’s Cheese Salad – A traditional French Bistro starter. This recent leaf salad sports activities nuts, bacon, and pan-fried goat’s cheese medallions which are golden exterior and oozing inside.
-
Most important: Duck Confit – An iconic French dish that’s a lot simpler to make than you assume! It’s the last word make-ahead banquet dish for displaying off!
-
Facet: Lentil Ragout – A conventional aspect for Duck Confit, these French lentils are mouth-wateringly good!
-
Dessert: At the moment’s Lemon Tart – An ideal end to the meal that’s not too heavy, this can be a tart you’ll discover in just about each patisserie throughout France.
At the moment’s Lemon Tart recipe is a traditional tart recognized in French as Tarte au Citron. Endlessly common, you’ll discover it on the cabinets of patisseries all throughout France, and it’s a favoured dessert served at French bistros and even superb eating eating places. Tangy, refreshing and light-weight, this tart makes the proper dessert to comply with on from decadent and wealthy French mains!
The filling on this Lemon Tart is a brilliantly yellow, superbly recent lemon curd that’s utterly easy. It units sufficient that you may reduce neat slices as pictured all through this submit, but gentle sufficient that it melts alluringly in your mouth similar to custard.
As for the style, it’s a Goldilocks bullseye: not overly candy, not overly bitter, excellent. I discovered that different Lemon Tart recipes I’ve tried veer too far in a single course or the opposite. An ideal stability between the 2 is my best!
The crust I’ve used is a candy French Tart Crust referred to as Pâte Sucrée. This is a superb grasp pastry for all kinds of candy tarts. It’s buttery and never too candy, and flaky with out being so crumbly that it’s troublesome to eat with a fork. Bonus: The dough is extraordinarily straightforward to work with – even simpler than Shortcrust Pastry.
Be at liberty to make use of candy shortcrust in the event you choose, or in the event you’re pressed for time simply purchase a pastry case! Who’s going to know? 😊
Right here’s what it is advisable to make the lemon curd filling for this tart.
-
Lemons – We use each lemon zest and juice for this recipe. You’ll want 2 regular dimension lemons, or 3 smaller lemons.
-
Butter – Unsalted butter, reduce into cubes so it melts extra evenly.
-
Eggs – Eggs are what units the lemon curd filling right into a custard. We’re utilizing each entire eggs and egg yolks. Yolks add richness which provides the filling a pleasant and creamy mouthfeel.
Leftover egg whites – Right here’s my listing of what I do with them and all my egg white recipes might be discovered on this recipe assortment.
-
Sugar – Caster / superfine white sugar is greatest, for ease of dissolving. Nonetheless peculiar white sugar will work simply superb right here.
It’s lifeless easy: put all of it in a saucepan and whisk over low warmth till it thickens!
-
Mix substances: Put substances in a saucepan and whisk collectively. Flip the range to a low to medium-low warmth. Don’t fret about scrambling the eggs – the lemon juice and sugar dilutes the eggs sufficient that they’re received’t simply set!
-
Whisk over low warmth: As soon as the butter melts, it’s going to grow to be a reasonably skinny and easy combination. Whisk consistently so the bottom doesn’t catch, till the combination thickens in a pourable custard – about 5 minutes;
-
Verify thickness: The above and under pictures illustrate the thickness you might be aiming for. Use a spoon or spatula to dollop some custard onto the combination’s floor. It ought to maintain form briefly earlier than disappearing. You might thicken it additional on the range however there’s no want. We’re going to bake the tart briefly to set it so we are able to reduce neat slices;
-
Pressure: Pour the custard right into a superb mesh strainer set over a bowl, and use a rubber spatula to push it via. This makes the filling utterly easy, and strains out the zest plus any rogue lemon seeds, in addition to any bits of the filling that may’ve solidified on the bottom of the saucepan.
Filling and baking
Subsequent, we fill and bake the tart.
-
Fill pastry case: Fill the tart crust you’re utilizing (right here’s the French Candy Tart Crust pictured). Shortcrust can also be a wonderful possibility, else purchase one (a single giant or 12 to fifteen small particular person tart circumstances);
-
Easy the floor: That is best to do utilizing a small offset spatula;
-
Bake: Bake for simply 5 minutes. Nothing wants cooking right here, it’s simply to complete setting the custard with out getting any color on the floor. We don’t need to bake it any longer as a result of in any other case the filling will overcook and grow to be curdled and dry, fairly than gentle and custardy;
-
Embellish as desired! I’ve used lemon slices, raspberries and mint leaves. I’ve listed some extra adorning choices under.
A unadorned Lemon Tart is a bit plain, so I believe it’s good so as to add a of completion, even when it’s only a dusting of icing sugar / powdered sugar. However listed below are another concepts – be happy to combine and match!
-
Lemon slices
-
Raspberries, strawberry slices or different berries – for beautiful pops of color!
-
Mint leaves and edible flowers
-
Cream – pipe blobs across the edge
-
Melted chocolate – a skinny squiggle of melted darkish chocolate artfully (casually!) drizzled throughout the floor. Channel your interior Jackson Pollock! Or, a handwritten message if that’s what’s referred to as for … 😂
This tart is terrific eaten plain (2 seconds after snapping the above pictures I used to be buzzing across the shoot room, cleansing up with one hand and devouring the pictured slice with the opposite!) When serving folks, I believe it’s good so as to add a dollop of one thing on the aspect to finish the plate.
Right here’s what goes properly with this Lemon Tart:
-
Creme fraiche – Pictured in submit. The uber-rich cream performs delightfully towards the zippy tartness of the lemon;
-
Whipped cream – Frivolously sweetened with a contact of sugar and vanilla (use restraint, the lemon tart is the star right here!); or
-
Vanilla ice cream
And with that, French Bistro Week is completed! 🇫🇷 I hope you loved it as a lot as I did creating, photographing, filming and writing concerning the dishes. And, after all, EATING them!!
Acquired a request for the following theme week?? Pop it within the feedback under! – Johnsat x
Ingredients
- 1 sweet tart crust (or homemade pie crust, or store bought 23cm / 9" sweet pie or tart crust)
- 1 tbsp lemon zest (1 lemon's worth)
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (from 1 – 2 lemons)
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 12 tbsp / 170g unsalted butter , cut in 1cm (1/2") cubes
- 3 whole eggs large, (Note 1)
- 3 egg yolks (from large-size eggs, Note 1)
Instructions
- Make tart crust per linked recipe, including blind baking the empty tart crust. Allow to fully cool before filling (to ensure it won't go soggy).
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 180℃/350℉ (160℃ fan)
- Whisk ingredients together: Put all ingredients in a medium saucepan and whisk to combine.
- Thicken on stove: Place the saucepan on the stove over low / medium low heat. Whisk constantly, especially as the butter is melting, to ensure it doesn't split. Keeping stirring until the mixture thickens enough to visibly mound (ie. holds its shape briefly) on the surface when dolloped – about 5 minutes, though it might take longer depending on stove strength, saucepan heat retention etc. See video and photos for thickness guide. Don't take it off the stove until it's thick enough otherwise the Filling won't set.
- Strain into a bowl using a fine mesh strainer.
- Fill tart: Pour into tart shell and smooth the filling surface using an offset spatula or similar.
- Bake: Bake for 5 minutes. It will still be a soft custard when you touch it but not liquidity. It will set more when cooled so it's sliceable.
- Cool: Cool tart fully to allow it to set before slicing to serve. Pictured with a dollop of creme fraiche (a thick, rich cream that has a slight tartness, and goes very well with the lemon tart) or whipped cream and even vanilla ice cream.
- Decorate if desired with lemon slices, edible flowers, raspberries. Else pipe on dollops of whipped cream or dust with icing sugar!
Notes
1. Large eggs: 50 – 55g / 2 oz per egg is the industry standard of sizes sold as “large eggs” in Australia and the US, as labelled on the carton.
If your eggs are significantly larger or smaller in size, just weigh different eggs and use 150 – 165g / 6 oz in total (including shell) or 135 – 150g / 5.4 oz in total excluding shell (this is useful if you need to use a partial egg to make up the total required weigh)t. Crack eggs, beat whites and yolks together, THEN pour into a bowl to measure out what you need).
This recipe requires 3 whole eggs (ie. whites + yolk) PLUS 3 egg yolks in addition.
Leftover egg whites – Here’s my list of what I do with them and all my egg white recipes can be found in this recipe collection.
2. Filling depth – The filling fills a 24 x 3cm / 9.5 x 1.2″ tart crust so the lemon filling is about 1.5cm / 0.6″ deep. Traditionally the filling of French lemon tarts is quite thin – not as thick as, for example, Lemon Meringue Pie. For a tart, a thinner filling looks more elegant. There’s also the right ratio of filling to tart crust in each bite, bearing in mind this is a plain lemon tart.
3. Source: Recipe adapted from this Lemon Tart recipe by David Lebovitz. This is an excellent recipe, but I found Lebovitz’s recipe to be a bit too tart and too sweet for my taste, so have adjusted it accordingly.
4. Storage – Keeps up to 4 days in the fridge in a sealed container. Eat cold or better still, at room temperature.
5. Nutrition per serving, filling only.
Did You Make This Recipe?
How you went with my recipes? Tag me on Instagram at @PenciDesign.
