LEMON BERRY TART
IF THIS ISN’T THE PERFECT SUMMER DESSERT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS
6-8 servings, 1 hour (plus chilling)
Ingredients:
Dough:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
Lemon Curd:
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, 4-ish lemons
2 tbsp grated lemon zest
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs plus 3 yolks, at room temperature (if this doesn’t come easy to you, use this yolk separator, trust me once you have it, you’ll use it often!)
Topping:
1/2 cup blackberries
1/2 cup raspberriesOptional: 2 tbsp powdered sugar
The Blistered Peppers Take:
This recipe is actually very personal to me because it’s one of the first things that made me fall in love with cooking! I guess baking - let’s just say…spending time in the kitchen!! When I was 13 years old, my friends and I wanted to bake at every sleepover possible. Maybe it was the easy bake oven craze, I don’t know, but regardless you could find us mixing it up in the kitchen. Boxed brownies, confetti cake, Sprinkles cupcakes - if it came in a box, we were baking it! And to be honest, I don’t think any of it was ever very good, but we were having fun. One day, I wanted to make something from scratch and had limited ingredients on hand, lemon check, sugar check, butter check, and I went to a site (joyofbaking.com) and found: Lemon Bars.
I became infamous for these lemon bars! They were perfectly tart, relatively easy to make (once you got the crust right) and required such basic ingredients. Over the years I played around with different curds, crusts, and ultimately had the idea of making a tart because, well, it looked WAY more impressive. And now, I share that with all of you.
This lemon berry tart is one of my favorites because it is the perfect combo of tart and sweet, which makes it a great Summer dessert. Personally, something super chocolaty and rich just doesn’t appeal to me in the Summer months. It’s normally best to find ingredients that are at the peak of their season, but for better or worse, you can find great berries around the country any time of year. Which means, yes this is great in the Summer, but you can charm the hell out of your guests any time of year. I use raspberries and blackberries, but this would work great with strawberries or blueberries (quick tip - juice some lemon on top of a bowl of blueberries and sprinkle with some sugar and you’ve got yourself a quick, fresh, and yummy dessert :) ). Though we’ve got access to berries all year round, I recommend not washing your berries until you’re about to use them. Even if you dry them well, if they sit too long after being cleaned they tend to slump and mold.
It’s an annoying step, but I’ve made this mistake many times during my cooking tenure. Squeeze the lemons into a separate bowl and actually measure the juice. Lemons differ in size and in juiciness and I don’t want your tart to be less than because you counted lemons vs. the volume of juice. If you over squeeze you can store fresh lemon juice in your fridge for up to TWO WEEKS! Your hand works as the best kitchen tool most days, but for recipes that need more than a small squeeze of citrus, I recommended grabbing yourself a hand squeezer. Grab this one off amazon and you won’t be sorry. Another quick lemon tip - when you’re in the produce section, don’t go crazy over the feel of the lemon. I prefer those that have a smoother skin and just the right amount of give, but if you don’t have time for that, grab whatever looks good. When you’re ready to use, if it feels a little harder, put a little bit of pressure on the lemon and roll it back and forth on your counter for 15 seconds. Cut it and half and you’ll get even more juice out of it!
So try this out, bring it to a friend's bbq, or sit in the sun with a slice and a cold iced tea? Sounds like heaven to me! Let me know how it goes.
Steps:
Make the dough: In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar and salt. Add the cold, cubed butter and pulse a few times, then add the whisked egg and pulse just until the dough comes together. The dough will be a little soft. Form the dough into a disc about 1 inch thick, wrap in seran wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Alternatively, you can use a premade tart shell.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a large circle about ¼ inch thick. Place the dough in a buttered tart pan - I like to roll the dough over the rolling pin and unroll it into the pan (this way the dough doesn’t tear). Using your fingertips, press the dough into the crevasses of the tart pan; make sure the dough is even across the bottom and sides. Remove excess dough - again, you can use the rolling pin, simply roll it over the top of the tart pan and the excess dough will separate from the edges. Use a fork to prick the bottom of the tart so it can breathe. Freeze for 20-30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place a large cookie sheet on the middle rack. Remove the tart shell from the freezer and place directly on the cookie sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the lemon curd. In a medium saucepan over low-medium heat, add the lemon juice and zest then add the butter, so it begins to melt, and finally, add the sugar. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolks until smooth. Slowly add the lemon mixture into the eggs, don’t let them scramble! Add this mixture back into the saucepan over low heat, whisk constantly until the mixture thickens to the texture of egg yolk - about 5 minutes. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve back into the large bowl and continue to whisk until cool; you can also place the bowl into the fridge for about 5-10 minutes but make sure you whisk every so often.
Finally, pour the mixture into the cooled tart shell and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
Allow the lemon tart to cool, then you can arrange the mixed berries atop the tart. Sprinkle with a bit of powdered sugar if desired.
Remember to keep this tart refrigerated! Remove from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before serving, it’s best served slightly chilled, slightly room temp!
