twd: lemon cream tart

by the stroke of the seasonal luck, when i went to fairway this weekend to buy lemons for this week's tuesdays with dorie, the meyer lemons were back in stock! i first spotted them in february, but hadn't seen them recently and was begrudgingly paying $1.50 for each pair of plain measly thick-skinned lemons. but here they were in all their gorgeous orange-yellow soft juicy glory and i bought a whole bagful. so be ready for lotsa lemon posts :)

first is the lemon cream tart by dorie, inspired by pierre hermé (who isn't inspired by him?), with a pâte sablée dough.


hermé's lemon cream (and dorie's recipe) is pretty much a traditional lemon curd, but with the butter added at the end, after the double boiling of the sugar, eggs, and lemon juice. according to dorie's description, emulsifying the butter like this creates a "velvety light" texture.

who doesn't want velvety light lemon curd?


and what beautiful fragrance the meyer zest made! i was in lemon heaven.


continued to whisk in the double boiler until 175F, thick and whisk tracking. moved to adding the butter. looks light and airy with lots of bubbles. i set it in the fridge sunday night. come home monday evening, i take a look, and it's fairly thick.

or so it seemed! i whisked it loosely as prescribed but then proceeded to pour it into the tart shell. that's right ladies and gents, it poured. no spoons need apply! if you need a lemony crème anglaise, i got what yous need. but a tart curd? uhh, just move along folks, nothing here to see.

this was obviously beyond set-able in the proper sense. so i popped it in the freezer for a little over an hour to get it to firm up in the fastest, easiest way i knew how. it came out manageable. and absolutely velvety light and delish. no complaints on the taste at all, one of the best i've had. but a couple of photos later, and it was already melting.

which i'm sad to say because i've now tried five dorie recipes and have been unhappy with all of them. sometimes with the taste and sometimes with the mechanics and end result. of course it could be me, i'm a newbie, what good do i know? but i've been happy with many other baking recipes so it can't be that i'm totally ill-equipped and incompetent.

then again, many other people out there thoroughly enjoy her book and have great success with her recipes. but baking chemistry is more than just what goes on in the oven, right? it's also the relationship between the teacher and the student. so i (somewhat) look forward to trying more, but it may just be that dorie isn't the right lady for me :(

for the lemon cream tart recipe, click here.

to see the list of other lovely tuesdays with dorie bakers, click here!




oops! all three photos have a different yellow hue. pardon my complete lack of post-processing skills ;)