The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

This weeks Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart chosen by Mary of Starting From Scratch.

Reading so many food blogs I constantly see the words MYER LEMONS, so i thought this was my chance to use them. I really wanted to get some, but my local supermarkets do not carry them and I did not have the means to travel to get them. But they are on my list of things to try.

So I just used regular supermarket lemons. After scrubbing green ink off the my supermarket lemons (why do they need to stamp Sunkist on the lemon and put a Sunkist sticker?) i started my cream. I had some trouble with my lemon cream. I used a metal bowl and didn't have a problem with the temperature but to me my consistency no good. I'm not sure if i really had trouble or if i was expecting something else (i was thinking the consistency of a lemon meringue pie filling). After 24 hours in the fridge, it seemed like my cream would never get thick enough. Eventually i just spread it into the tart shell and put it in the fridge again. Then it started to thicken even more. The final cream was was soft (a little grainy), but firm enough to hold swirls made a with spatula and to make a semi-clean slice.

The crust was really simple, but i had to use two yolks. I dont know why but lately all my eggs yolks have been different sizes. I only buy large eggs but if you saw the yolks that come out of this egg - it was so small. I also added about 2 tsp of ice cold water to bring it together since it was like sand. I had no problems lining my tart pan, freezing the crust or baking the crust. I have a little lemon cream left over but it may be because I used a different sized tart pan - a rectangular one.

I made some candied lemon slices to garnish it. Wow those things are good, and i didn't even dip them in sugar afterward. I will use the leftover syrup to go over a lemon cake i will make later this month.

I ate one slice, it was good but a bit much for me. I like lemon but i'm not really a lemon lover so I cant really give a consensus on how it tasted since it was only ready yesterday and I haven't had a chance to share it with anyone. This is one of the challenges where is have to share since I am not a lemon lover, there is no way i can finish this off by myself.

I am thinking to make the orange and/or lime tart in the near future, especially since its spring. I would think that you could just sub the zest/juice with a different citrus and have the same results but depending on which citrus you use the cream recipe is different. I wonder why?
I am eager to see all the lemon and orange creams made this week and what the outcome out was.

**After looking at various entries today I have decided that i too want smooth and silkly pale yellow lemon cream, sooo i will be trying this cream again. I do not have a food processor/blender, only a KA stand mixer, KA hand held mixer and a immersion blender. Any suggestions on which i should use when incorporating the butter**

For a printable verion of the recipe click here

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