Rustic Lemon Tart

Ingredients

Cooks in:30 minutes        Serves:6

For the Sweet short-crust pastry

• 140g all purpose flour
• 70g cold butter, cut into cubes
• 2 Tbsp icing sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2/3 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla essence<
• 1-2 Tbsp cold water

Filling

• 1 large lemon, chopped small, rind included but seeds removed
• 1½ cups caster sugar or light brown sugar<
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 1½ Tbsp cornflour
• 125 g butter, softened

What to do

1. To make the pastry, mix all of the ingredients except the water together in a food processor until the texture resembles bread crumbs. Then add in 1-2 Tbsp
ice cold water and mix until the mixture comes together in a rough ball.

2. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

3. To make the filling, blend the chopped lemon in a blender, and add the sugar in about four stages, mixing in between each addition until smooth.

4. Add the egg, egg yolk, cornflour and butter. Mix again and then set aside.

5. Preheat the oven to 180 °C and place a baking tray on the middle shelf. Lightly grease a tart tin or glass ovenproof dish (about 15 x 10 cm).

6. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to about ½ cm thick and use to line the tin or dish. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes (to avoid blind-baking).

7. Remove from the freezer, prick the surface a few times with a fork, place the tart shell on the pre-heated baking tray, pour in the filling and bake for 30 minutes at 180C and then 20 minutes at 150C or until the tart is just set.

8. Allow to cool to room temperature when it will be perfectly ready to serve with fresh cream.

Notes
The recipe was doubled for the TV show.
Instead of making the pastry from scratch, you can use 1 x 400 g roll of readymade short-crust pastry, thawed and rolled out slightly thinner.
You can double the pastry and freeze half for up to 2 months to use when you need it. For easy filling and baking, freeze the dough already in a pie dish.
You can use light brown sugar instead of caster sugar for a slightly different texture.
Can easily be made the day before and stored, covered, at room temperature.

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