Thursday, January 2, 2014

Italian Lemon Tarte - Crosata di Limone

Someone who is very thoughtful gave me an Italian recipe book for Christmas...I'm not sure who, but thank you!
This recipe is the first the book opened to and it was amazing - like lemon curd in a tart. Not surprising really as the ingredients are similar to lemon curd apart from there being cream in this and butter in lemon curd.

We had it warm, but I also ate lots of left overs cold from the fridge.
The pastry shell is beautifully short and has a subtle lemon flavour. I loved making the pastry on the bench rather than in a bowl - it felt like 'traditional Italian cooking'.

I used baking beans to keep the tart shell in shape and chilled it again once I had it in the tin.
The mixture came right up to the top of the baked tart shell before it was cooked but shrunk back during cooking which didn't look quite as I imagined but it was still one I will make again.
My tart was very yellow compared to the book...that might have been because the eggs came from our chickens and the yolks are very yellow.

Italian Lemon Tarte - Crosata di Limone

Ingredients
200g plain flour
250g caster sugar,
    plus 2 tbsp
5 egg yolks
grated peel and juice of 2 lemons
1 pinch of salt
100g chilled butter
3 eggs
150 ml double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
oil for greasing

Method
Sift the flour onto a work surface, blend in 7 tablespoons of caster sugar, and make a well in the centre. Add 4 egg yolks, half the lemon peel, the salt and the butter cut into small pieces. kneed everything together into a smooth, supple dough. From the dough into a ball, cover in cling film and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease a 25cm springform tart tin. Roll out the pastry very thinly on a floured work surface and use to line the base and sides of the tin. Use a fork to prick several holes in the pastry, then lay a sheet of baking paper over it. Chill in fridge again for 30 minutes. Fill with baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the beasn and baking paper and leave the pastry to cool.
Reduce the oven temp to 160 degrees C.
Beat the remaining egg yolk, whole eggs and the rest of the sugar and lemon peel into a thick pale cream. Stir in the lemon juice. Whip the cream and fold into the egg mixture.
Pour in into the case and spread evenly, then bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. I added about another 5-10 minutes.
Dust the surface with icing sugar, then return to oven until golden brown.






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