Slow Baked Lemon Tart from the book Never Skip Dessert.

Ingredients for One Tart

250gm Sugar Dough (recipe below)

Tart Filling

200gm Lemon Juice

100gm Butter

4 Eggs

300gm Icing Sugar

The Zest of 1 Lemon

Candied Lemon Peel

2 Fresh Lemon

200ml Water

200gm White Sugar

Method

Start with preparing the candied lemon peel. Peel the lemon keeping only the yellow part of the skin. Chop it into fine julienne. Boil the water and sugar to make simple syrup. While the syrup is still warm, soak the lemon skin in it and cover the pot with plastic film. Leave it for about 2 hours, until the lemon peels are candied. Then, prepare the lemon tart filling. Mix the eggs and the icing sugar until fully combined. Add the lemon juice and mix well. Melt the butter in microwave oven and add it to the mixture - blend well. 

Assembly

Roll out the sugar dough to 2mm thickness and lay the dough into your tart mould. Make some holes in the bottom of the tart and bake it "à blanc" using beans for example. Once golden brown, take out the beans and fill the tart with the lemon filling. 

Bake in the oven starting at 150°C and at the time you place it in the oven, turn down the temperature to 50°C or if your oven keeps the heat well, just turn it off and let the tart cook on the falling temperature, very slowly. This is what will make the texture of this tart perfect. Once the lemon filling is set, allow to cool at room temperature, slice the tart and serve it with some candied lemon peel on the top. 

Suggestions

Try to serve this tart with double cream or raspberry sorbet - classics. Something less usual would be to serve it with a demi-sec Hydromel, an alcohol made of honey and water which will blend with the strong citrus accent of the tart. 

To make the tart, ensure that your lemons are of the best quality - the wholesomeness of the tart is all about the good flavour of the lemon juice. 

Sugar Dough

190 gm White Sugar 

300 gm Butter 

60 gm Almond Powder 

120 gm Eggs 

500 Cake Flour

Pinch of salt

Mix the butter and sugar until it has a pomade texture. Add the eggs one by one until well blended. Finally add the almond powder, the flour and the pinch of salt. Mix it into smooth dough, but do not mix it for too long. Once done, wrap it in a plastic film and allow resting in the fridge for at least 3 hours before using.