I loved butter as a child. No matter how many times I got into trouble, every time I was out of my mother’s site, I would crawl up onto the kitchen table and eat the butter. By itself.
Not much has changed, I still love butter. (Although, I don’t sit on my kitchen table eating it by itself anymore that would be just plain weird.) I love the smell of butter and sugar mixing together, which is why I love this tart shell. It's buttery and it’s so easy for pastry dough, that it just doesn’t seem right. I left out the almonds…I don’t like almonds messing with my tart dough. It's a texture thing. Just my humble opinion.
Tart dough...I'm somewhat rustic when it comes to tart dough
Lemon dessert isn’t something I discovered I enjoyed until a year ago. I thought the only dessert out there was chocolate…and from the looks of TWD lately...you would think that chocolate WAS THE only dessert on this earth ;).
I didn’t use Meyer lemons like some of the other bakers. I would have loved to use Meyer lemons, but you see I’m leaving for Italy on Friday….and I am trying to use up whatever food stock I have before I leave.
I left the piff of the lemons off, as I received insider tips that it made this tart too bitter. I was sure to save all the zest…I mean….who would waste perfectly good zest? I tasted the batter….it tasted like delicious, sweet lemonade.
I made mini tarts….I figured it would make these easy to pawn off on my neighbors…who love lemon desserts. But since there were 4 tarts…I decided…why not make them different. So I added raspberries to one, blueberries another and two plain lemon tarts. I still had leftover lemon filling so I saved it and froze it for another occasion. I can’t wait for that lemon occasion.
My only problem was extracting the tarts from their pan….it’s possible I should have tried it while it was warm but I feared it would crumble in a million pieces. I think they may be permanently fixated in the pan…
I topped mine with powdered sugar for the photo op…but I plan on topping with whipped cream or crème fraiche when I serve this tonight after dinner. That is…if they make it that long.
Overall, this tart was very lemon-y (um...its called TARTEST Lemon tart for a reason)! If you like tart lemonade…you would love this. The texture is probably what I liked the most, really gooey caramel-y texture with the tart undertones (or really overtones in this instance) makes the dessert and I enjoyed it.
Thank you, Babette of Babette Feasts for hosting this lovely dessert this week. If you would like the recipe, be sure to check out Babette’s page or buy the book “Baking from My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan. Be sure to check out the other bakers who diligently work each week with TWD!
I will be leaving Friday for Italy and out of the blogging world until after the Memorial Holiday….can’t wait to share our adventures with you! Don’t worry though; you can still check in on the other TWD bakers while I am gone!
