Lemon Tart (serves 12)

Tart Case

Bought pre-rolled shortcrust pastry (pate sucrée) – 500g

Place in the case and neatly mould into the sides. Prick all over with a fork about 15 times. Rest in the fridge for 30 minutes while prereheating the oven to 180 degrees.

Add a scrumpled up piece of baking paper to cover the bottom and fill with coins. Place in the oven for 15 minutes or until the pasty starts turning golden. Remove the coins and baking paper and place in the oven for 3 minutes. Remove again and coat generously with egg yolk to fill in any holes and put back in the oven for about 8 minutes (or until evenly golden). Remove and let cool.

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Filling

30 g peeled lemon zest
280g lemon juice
330g double cream
385g caster sugar
10 whole eggs
1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 110 degrees.

Mix everything together with a spatula. Do not overmix as you don’t want to incorporate any air bubbles. Cook to 63 degrees in a bain marie then pass through a fine sieve and transfer to the pre-cooked tart shell and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes minutes or until set but with a wobble in the centre of tart. Let set at room temperature.

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When ready to serve, cut into individual portions. Sprinkle with caster sugar and blowtorch until a crème brulee topping effect has been achieved on top.

We serve this as a pudding at The Tasty Ski Company with a few dollops of Italian Meringue and candied lemon slices, or alternatively a blob of blueberry sorbet. However the real star of the show is the lemon tart and is delicious on its own.

*Making your own pastry is unquestionably better than buying it in. When kneading your own dough you are able to control exactly to what extent the butter separates the small flour aggregates. This delicate separation prevents the formation of a continuous tough mass – resulting in a nice crumbly texture (the more sugar added the crumblier the texture). Bought pastry is almost certainly over kneaded as the texture is quite heavy and not at all crumbly.

*Inserting a digital probe into the tart centre would probably be a more accurate way of checking whether the tart is cooked. However it must be considered that the ‘reading’ point of the probe needle may be up to a centimetre long (often the cheaper the probe the longer the ‘reading’ point). As the tart filling is only a couple of centimetres high this method could also lead to inaccuracies.