Mmm, I love lemons! Sometimes only seen as the sour yellow cousin of the mighty orange or the accompanying friend in many an alcoholic beverage. They are one of the very few fruits which can be used well in both sweet and savoury dishes and they are available all year long.

I’ve used them as the star in a few recipes on this blog (see here and here) and once again, the spotlight is on them. The cooler months produce the best citrus and this winter, the lemons have been absolute beauties.

So, what to make with the big bag of lemons I bought from the market last week? A lemon tart of course! This humble tart has kind of lost it’s popularity throughout the last decade and I don’t really know why. You can’t really go wrong with a slice of rich buttery pâte sablée encasing a delicious, tangy lemony filling. It makes me drool even just writing about it!

It’s a shame the lemon tart isn’t as popular as it used to be. Bring back the lemon tart I say, let it reign supreme once again!

Lemon Tart with Candied Lemons

Adapted from a recipe in Australian Gourmet Traveller, August 2008.

4 eggs

400ml cream

150g caster sugar

4 lemons, juiced

zest of 2 lemons

Candied lemons

2 small lemons, thinly sliced

250g caster sugar

Pastry

(I used the pastry recipe in my mango tart recipe)

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup icing sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg yolk

1. Process all ingredients for the lemon filling in a food processor until just combined. Transfer to a large jug or bowl and refrigerate until the froth separates from the liquid. This should take a few hours.
2. For the candied lemons, place lemon slices in a saucepan, cover with cold water, bring to the boil, then drain and repeat 4 times. Combine sugar and 250ml water in a separate saucepan, bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, then add lemon slices and cook over low heat until tender and translucent (30-40 minutes). Cool.
3. For the pastry, whizz the flour, sugar, butter, salt and zest Add the butter and whizz until it becomes pebbly, with large bits and small bits. Add the egg yolk and a tablespoon of water and combine until the dough comes together. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and lightly knead for a minute. Wrap the dough up and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes. Roll the dough out between two sheets of non-stick paper and line a 22cm (9 inch) fluted flan tin. Place in fridge for 30 minutes to chill and rest. Remove the lined tin from the fridge.
4. Preheat the oven to 175°C. Blind bake for approximately 15 minutes or until the exposed edges are a very light brown. Remove the baking paper and weights. Reduce the oven temperature to 150°. Meanwhile, skim top of lemon filling to remove froth, pour into pastry case and bake until just set (30-40 minutes). Cool to room temperature in tart tin, place candied lemons on top and serve.

Serves 8.

I’ve always been a bit hesitant in making pastry for the fear that I would miserably fail and end up with buttery cardboard, but for some strange reason, I woke up this morning wanting to give puff pastry a go and use it for something sweet. After perusing a few baking books, I realised I didn’t have enough butter in my fridge and I did not want to tackle the torrential downpour outside to visit the supermarket, so I had to seek out an alternative.

After flicking through ‘Let It Simmer’ by Australian Sean Moran, I found a wonderful recipe for apple blueberry turnovers and his recipe for the pastry is the easiest flaky pastry recipe ever. It only required whizzing most of the ingredients in a food processor, then letting it rest in the fridge for forty-five minutes. No messy incorporation of butter or multiple folds and turns of the pastry. Just whizz, chill, roll. Easy as that!

Happy baking!

Apple Blueberry Turnovers

Adapted from a recipe by Sean Moran in ‘Let It Simmer’.

2 large golden delicious or granny smith apples

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

100g caster sugar

pinch of salt

1½ tablespoons cornflour

squeeze of lemon juice

100g blueberries

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons milk

raw/demerara sugar, to sprinkle

cream cheese pastry

150g unsalted butter, diced and frozen for 30 minutes

125g cream cheese, chilled

250g plain flour, sifted

pinch of salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ cup iced water

1. For the pastry, blend the cream cheese, flour, salt and baking powder in a food processor until evenly grainy. Add the chilled butter and pulse for several seconds until the mixture is made of pea-sized lumps. Add the iced water and pulse for an extra second. Spoon the mixture into a plastic freezer or ziplock bag, then knead from outside the bag with your heels and knuckles until the dough holds together in one piece (it should feel slightly stretchy when pulled). Flatten the dough into a disc and refrigerate, in the plastic bag, for at least 45 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Peel, core and dice the apples (there should be roughly 300g of fruit). Toss with the cinnamon, caster sugar and salt. Add the blueberries and mix gently.
3. Roll the pastry out on a well-floured surface until 2mm thick. Cut rounds with a 13cm diameter pastry cutter (or simply use a cake plate or bowl). Re-roll the scraps and cut out more rounds.
4. Divide the filling between the pastry rounds, piling it on to one half and leaving a 1cm border around the edge. Paint the edge lightly with egg before folding pastry over to seal. Reserve the egg mix.
5. Place the turnovers onto a baking tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes before baking.
6. Mix the milk with the remaining egg and brush this over each turnover. Poke a few holes into each pastry to allow steam to vent. Sprinkle the raw/demerara sugar on top of each turnover. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the pastry is golden (the sauce will probably ooze out of the holes too). Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 15 or so.

Just for your information, getting flour in the eye hurts like fucking hell.

You’re probably asking “who the hell gets flour in their eyes?” Well I did today and it was not a good look!

Let me set the scene… I am standing at my kitchen bench, ready to make the sweet shortcrust dough using my handy dandy food processor. I tip in the sifted dry ingredients, pop the lid on and press the ‘pulse’ button two times. I then open the lid and add the cold, cubed butter and carefully replace the lid. I give it another whizz and bam! The ingredients all crash into each other and the flour immediately shoots up through the open spout into my right eye and all over my face. I usually cover the opening with my hand as I pulse, but was distracted by the Australian Open tennis on the TV (it’s such a great season this year!).

After I got flour in my eye, I started to freak out and ran to the bathroom in order to wash it out (a quick glimspe into the mirror and I looked like a very disturbed geisha). Anyway, as you know, combining flour with water makes a gunky paste and after adding water to my face, my eye looked like it had some sort of conjunctivitis in maximum overdrive. Although rinsing my eye out irritated my eye even more, I persisted and kept flushing it out with water and eventually the gunk disappeared. My eye was bloodshot red for a few hours and I particularly enjoyed scaring my sister Rosie with it (“Look Rosie!! My eye is all red because it’s going to pop out soon and roll out onto the floor near your feet!!).

Everything ran smoothly after the eye saga and I managed to make a beautiful mango tart :)

Mango Tart

This recipe is a basic sweet shortcrust pastry shell (or pâte sablée if you want to get all French and fancy) filled with pastry cream topped with fresh fruit. You can use whatever fruit you like, but I’ve chosen to use mangoes as their season is ending soon :)

Sweet shortcrust pastry

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup icing sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg yolk

1. In a food processor, whizz the flour, sugar and salt for a few seconds. Add the butter and whizz until it becomes pebbly, with large bits and small bits. Add the egg yolk and combine until the dough clumps together and the sound coming from the food processor distinctly changes.
2. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and lightly knead for a minute. Wrap the dough up and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
3. Roll the dough out between two sheets of non-stick paper and line a 22cm (9 inch) fluted flan tin. Place in fridge for 30 minutes to chill and rest. Remove the lined tin from the fridge and prick the base with a fork (this allows the expansion and contraction of the pastry).
4. Blind baking: fit a piece of non-stick baking paper tightly against the crust and fill with weights (rice, beans or actual weights – whatever you’ve got). Place the tin on a baking tray and bake in in a preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes or until the exposed edges are a very light brown. Remove the baking paper and weights. Bake for a further 8-10 minutes or until the base is golden brown (if the edges seem to brown very quickly, but the base is not ready as yet, cover the sides with foil and continue to bake until the base is a lovely brown). Allow to cool on wire rack.

Vanilla pastry cream

(recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s ‘Baking From My Home to Yours’)

2 cups (500ml) full-cream milk

½ cup caster sugar

1/3 cup cornflour

6 large egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

50g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1. Bring the milk to the boil. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the eggs, sugar and cornflour until smooth. Pour a little bit of the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisk well. Pour the remaining milk into the egg mixture and whisk like mad (you don’t want eggy lumps).
3. Place the saucepan onto the heat and whilst whisking constantly, bring the mix to the boil. Reduce the heat down to medium and cook for 2 minutes or so or until the custard becomes very thick. Remove from the heat.
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Whisk in the butter until it’s smooth and silky.
5. To quickly cool the pastry cream, fill your kitchen sink halfway with cold water and throw in a large handful of ice cubes. Scrape the pastry cream into a large plastic tub and plunge the tub into the sink. Whisk the pastry cream every now and then until it is thoroughly chilled.

Assembly

2 large, ripe mangoes

1. Cut the cheeks off both mangoes. Using a large spoon, carefully scoop out the flesh. Cut the mango cheeks into thin slices.
2. Fill the cold pastry case with the pastry cream, ensuring the filling is smooth.
3. Artfully arrange the mango slices over the pastry cream (I attempted concentric circles, but it didn’t happen. Bugger.)
4. The tart can be chilled in the fridge for a few hours before serving. It is best eaten on the day it is made as the pastry can become soggy from the pastry cream.

P.S. Tuesday 22 January – I had a small piece of the tart sitting in my fridge since Sunday which I gave to Z to eat today. Just to let you know, the pastry base was still firm and not soggy at all. Yay!

Yes, I’ve been slack. I haven’t updated this blog in over three weeks due to sickness (you can add a smidgen of laziness and a slight lack of inspiration to that excuse). It began with a throat infection and then I was hit with a rather nasty case of bronchitis which I’m still recovering from – I have that ‘pack-a-day’ cough which I must say is highly unattractive. But I digress, I’m much better now and ready to get down and dirty in the kitchen! Aprons on, here we go…

I made an apple tart yesterday because I simply felt like making something quick and easy. The ‘recipe’ below is a rough list of what I used and I say ‘rough list’ as I didn’t follow a recipe. Just kind of made it up and added a bit of this and a bit of that as I went along (yes, yes I am amazing). I had everything I needed in the pantry and a roll of puff pastry in the freezer (always a last-minute lifesaver) and it only took thirty minutes from start to finish (including baking time). It’s simple, fast and delicious.

Give it a go and adapt it to suit your tastes or what you have in the fridge/pantry. You may choose to replace the apples with pears, stone fruit or even berries! Instead of almonds, you could use ground hazelnuts or pecans. You could make a large square tart, or individual round ones. It can be anything you want. Baking/cooking is always up for interpretation!

Simple Apple Tart

180g sheet of puff pastry, defrosted (I cut a 375g roll of Câreme puff pastry in half – you could use a sheet of regular puff pastry)

2 small green apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced (you may have some apple slices left over)

1 egg yolk

honey, to drizzle

toasted slivered almonds, to sprinkle

Frangipane

5 tablespoons (or so) ground almonds

1 big tablespoon of unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons caster sugar

splash of vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
2. For the frangipane, combine all ingredients until well combined. Set aside.
3. Place the rectangle of pastry onto the baking sheet and using a very sharp knife, score a smaller rectangle one centimetre from the border. Prick all over the inside rectangle of the pastry with a fork (this helps the pastry to expand and stops it buckling in the middle). Spread the frangipane mix over the base of the pastry – I find it best to use wet fingers as a knife doesn’t do the job properly. Arrange the apple slices over the frangipane and make sure you overlap them tightly (if you don’t, the frangipane mix may bubble up). Brush the pastry edges with the egg yolk.
4. Bake in the oven for approximately 10 minutes or until the pastry is a pale golden brown and the tips of the apple slices begin to brown. Remove from the oven and liberally drizzle the tart with honey. Return the tart to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Sprinkle the toasted almonds on top.

With a big scoop of vanilla ice-cream, this tart should serve four for dessert – or two very greedy people (such as Z and myself) :)

Yesterday I was meant to catch up with a friend for coffee and wanted to bring something sweet for us to share. Unfortunately, our plan to meet fell through, but it worked out in the end as I got to eat more tarts for myself! :) (don’t get me wrong, I’m not that greedy – I brought my friend a tart to her work this morning – love you Bree!)

I love eating Portuguese custard tarts and knew a chocolate variation would be almost as good. I found a recipe for Chocolate Custard Tarts in Bill Granger’s ‘Bill’s Open Kitchen’ and headed straight to the supermarket to buy some chocolate. Being a Sunday and all, I was glad that the recipe was an easy-peasy one and only took 25 minutes to prepare!

Mini Chocolate Custard Tarts

(recipe found in ‘Bill’s Open Kitchen‘ by Bill Granger)

55g caster sugar

3 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

150g dark chocolate, grated or cut into tiny little pieces

185ml cream

2 sheets butter puff pastry* (defrosted)

icing sugar (to dust)

1. Preheat your oven to 220°C.
2. In a small saucepan, combine the egg yolks, caster sugar, vanilla extract and cornflour. Whisk until smooth. Add cream and 125ml water, mix until combined.
3. Place the saucepan over medium heat and constantly stir with a whisk until thickened (this may take between 5 to 8 minutes – you may get bored, but do not get distracted). DO NOT leave the mixture to cook without stirring as you will end up with lumpy custard and ruin it all (if this does happen, you will mostly likely cry and have to start again).
4. Dump the chocolate bits into the custard and furiously whisk until all the chocolate has melted and you end up with a smooth custard. Let it cool.
5. Place the puff pastry sheets on top of each other and tightly roll up into a log. Cut 16 even pieces from the log and roll out into a 10 centimetre disc using a rolling pin. Using two 12-hole non-stick muffin trays, line 16 of the holes with the pastry rounds, being careful to tuck in the edges and to press down firmly (you don’t have to grease the tins since the pastry is laden with butter and they’ll easily slip out).
6. Spoon the custard evenly into the 16 pastry shells (make sure the custard is cool or else the pastry will melt) and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until pastry is golden . Lick the bowl and spoon clean (this is mandatory).
7. Let them cool for a little bit, dust with icing sugar and eat them while they are still warm.

* When taking the lazy option and buying pre-made puff pastry (which I do all the time), please please please use an all-butter puff pastry – it tastes 1000 times better than the fake pastry you find in your supermarket freezer. I like to use Carême butter puff pastry – it is absolutely fantastic – it’s melt in your mouth buttery and deliciously flaky. Carême produce a vanilla bean shortcrust pastry and a sour cream flaky pastry too. Try them when you’re short of time!