CLASSIC LEMON TARTS

 

You can make your own tart shells or use frozen tart shells, but your tarts will not be as good as mine. My pastry dough is very pliable and easy to manipulate.

CLASSIC LEMON TARTS

1 batch of lemon curd

1/2 batch of pie pastry

Make the lemon curd first.

Next make the pie pasty.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

You will need a very large cookie cutter. If you don’t have one, use the widest glass you can find for cutting the pastry.

Roll out the dough slightly thicker then you want the tarts to be.

Cut out a dozen pastry rounds. Reroll the dough if needed.

With a rolling pin enlarge the rounds to fit a large muffin tin with the rounds sticking up about half an inch.

Place the dough rounds into the ungreased muffin pan, and push down gently with your fingers so the dough is centered in the well. The pastry should be sticking out by about half and inch or more, because it will shrink during baking.

Using a fork prick the bottom of every tart shell.  Otherwise it will bubble up during baking.

To weigh the bottoms down, place 4-5 large dry beans into each tart shell.

Or you can use commercial tart shells.

Bake the tart shells in the preheated oven until the pastry edges are golden brown.

Remove tart shells from oven and let them cool down slightly.

Pick out the beans. It will be a finicky job, but necessary.

Let the tart shells cool to room temperature and fill the tarts with lemon curd.