Tartest Lemon Tart

Babette of Babette Feasts picked this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe: Tartest Lemon Tart. I love lemon and I was really excited to make this. Instead of making one big tart, I made eight smaller tarts, each 3-1/2”. For the complete recipe, visit Babette’s blog.

This tart causes quite a bit of chatter among the Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers. Was this tart too tart? Others mentioned that they were worried about the tart being bitter. This recipe calls for 1-1/2 lemons, which you thinly slice and then process in a blender. So you are using all of the lemon, including the pith which can be very bitter. I read some different pieces of advice, and I ended up blanching the lemons to mellow them out. I also didn’t use the ends of the lemons since that was where you had the greatest percentage of pith.

I made the dough and I had a little extra left. I wasn’t exactly sure what the equivalent to a 9” tart would be, but 8 smaller tarts was almost the same amount of dough. You make the filling in a blender, and my blender isn’t so good as I think I almost burned out the motor! You combine the lemon and sugar and then add in melted butter and heavy cream. I figured that I had blended the mixture enough, but there were still a few tiny chunks of lemon left. I had extra filling left over, I suppose I could have filled the tarts more but it was really hard to tell what was enough.

I was really unsure how long to bake these, since my tarts were so much smaller. I followed the recipe as written, baking at 325 degrees for 20 minutes and then increase the temperature and bake for 25-30 more minutes. I checked after the second twenty minutes and it seemed like they were done, so I took them out of the oven to cool. They had puffed up quite a bit, but none had spilled over the sides. They weren’t as puffy after they had cooled.

I wasn’t sure how lemony these would be, or whether they would be bitter. They had a nice lemon flavor but they weren’t that strong or really all that tart. I was surprised. They were a touch bitter, which came through as an aftertaste. Maybe blanching the lemons took too much flavor away. I don’t really know. I have a feeling that the lemons you used made all of the difference. Some lemons are really tart and others aren’t so much. I’m happy either way, as this is a very nice refreshing dessert, perfect for spring.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 336