Tarte Au Citron

Lundulph and I were barely through a quarter of the chocolate tart, when I managed to drop it on the floor. As with buttered toast, the tart managed to flip around, even in the short drop of about 60 cm. So straight in the bin it went, with Lundulph asking me to make another one.

But I didn't want to do another chocolate one, so suggested something like lemon meringue pie. Yes, that would do, said Lundulph, but don't make it too lemony and sour tasting.

I know for a fact that I have a very good lemon meringue pie recipe from a very long time ago, when I worked at a restaurant where it was served regularly. Sadly I couldn't find the notepad where I'd written it down. Dang!

OK, surely I must have one in my recipe collection, sounds like the thing I would save and it was probably on The Great British Bake-Off at some point.

Nope, but I came across Mary Berry's recipe for tarte au citron. This link has the recipe and also a video of Mary Berry baking it.

I prepared the dough on the evening before and was quite proud of myself for managing to get the ingredients together with very little interaction and kneading. I formed it into a thick circle and put it in the fridge.

Now this turned out to be a mistake, because the dough went very hard and was almost impossible to roll out. In fact, yesterday I ended up beating it fairly brutally with the rolling pin to get it going .

And indeed it didn't roll out as nicely as I would have liked. I tried to patch up the cracks as much as possible.

Lessons learned from the chocolate tart, I prepared a piece of aluminium foil for the blind baking and I also prepared to protect the edges from burning.

I also left the surplus over the edge, though this ground against my very nature as being highly wasteful.

But I'm glad I managed to control myself and follow the instructions, the blind bake worked out a treat. Lundulph happily gobbled up the trimmed edges, they were very delicate and tasty in their own right. Sadly as I took out the pastry case, I noticed that it had several holes, obviously my patching attempts had not been successful and the filling would run through and on the outside. Oh well...

Indeed it did run out. Also I had to bake it for 40 minutes before the filling had set. At this point a couple of bubbles had formed, which added to the misfortunes. I pierced them with a skewer. Perhaps the oven was a bit too hot? I let the pie cool down completely in the tart tin, then covered with cling film and put in the fridge.

This morning when I took the pie out to bring it to room temperature, I noticed the filling had contracted a bit and cracks had appeared along the edge. Maybe I over-baked it or it is because some of the filling went on the outside of the pie, I don't know.

But it sure was tasty, though I think I'll increase the amount of sugar used in the filling. The recipe states 225 g, but I'll up it to 250 g. And the big lesson learned here is to roll the dough out and fit it into the tart tin immediately, rather than leave it in a ball overnight, I think this it will roll out better and bake properly without cracks and holes.