Jottage from Lancaster/Cambridge - Lemon Tart

I have been lacking a bit in inspiration over the festive season, hence not putting up any new posts at all. However I couldn’t resist reporting on the concoction of a very delicious lemon tart. The recipe came from the River Cottage Family Cookbook (pp. 52-3) – one of my Christmas presents. The book is full of lovely pictures and is clearly meant to be used by young children (there are quite a few pictures of cute kids peeling, chopping and eating things). It is neatly divided up into the major food groups – flour, milk, eggs etc. – with descriptions at the beginning of each chapter about what extraordinary things can be created from the most basic ingredients. The lemon tart was the most obvious thing to make as my mother had already bought a load of lemons, and my husband adores lemon tart more than pretty much anything else. Supermarket brands of lemon tart are generally pretty good, and for about 3.99 you can get yourself a nice tart which might even be sprinkled with some icing sugar. I was intrigued to know what it would taste like if I made it myself though.

Ethan and Amelia making breadcrumbs from butter and flour

This was my first attempt at making a lemon tart and I had no idea how time-consuming it was going to be. Hugh’s recipe was fairly straightforward  but there were a surprising number of steps and not much explanation at certain points – for example, he didn’t explain why the pastry needed to be pricked with a fork, or why a baking sheet needed to be warmed up in the oven. Also, what on earth are baking beans for and what would have happened if we hadn’t used them? Pastry is pretty fragile stuff it seems, and needs a lot of care and attention. I gathered the assistance of my 5 year old nephew, Ethan, and 2 year old niece Amelia, and – as the pictures below reveal – they got stuck in mixing the flour and butter together.

Tristan making sure that we follow the recipe correctly

However I couldn’t really interest them in the next stage (too many Christmas presents to play with)– a pity as there can’t be many things more satisfying than mixing together butter, sugar, eggs and lemons. We poured the gloopy mix into our perfect pastry case and warmed it slightly under the grill before eating. Unlike shop bought tarts the filling was very runny, but it was a perfect shade of yellow – not pale at all, but the colour of real lemons. There were no complaints at the table that night, and there wasn’t a scrap of pastry left.

The final product - edges slightly burned as we didn't read the bit which suggested you cover the sides in foil