When life hands you lemons..

..make lemonade. Or so the saying goes. It's not really the season to be enjoying lemonade but there are endless possibilities for the irresistible bargain of a kilo of unwaxed lemons I found for 79p in the supermarket last week. My first thought was to make some preserved lemons, having enjoyed Yotam Ottolenghi's series  Mediterranean Feast on Channel 4. I have never tried this before  let alone made any recipes in which they feature but with my passion for anything lemon flavoured or lemon scented it seemed something well worth a try. I still have a few weeks to go before they are ready so I will resist the urge to share with you until I know just how successful the endeavour has been.

Meanwhile I can share something I know to be a success, lemon tart. This recipe for one of my childhood favourites is one of my mother's. It is very easy, with a simple list of ingredients and produces the tangiest dessert.

 

Easy Lemon Tart

 

You will need:

For the pastry case(s)

• One batch of your favourite recipe,(or mine ) for sweet short crust pastry. Scale it to use about 230g - 250g of flour as this makes enough pastry cases for the quantity of filling.

For the filling

• One lemon
• One cooking apple ( not too large)
• One egg
• One cup of  caster sugar ( 200g if you are weighing)

 Oven: 175°C
Tin: 24cm flan or pie tin to make one large tart. 
(I used a Yorkshire pudding tin to make 4 small  9cm tarts and also a 18cm tart plate.)
 

  You will need to:

1. Blind bake the pastry case or cases.Make sure they are placed on oven trays or cookie slides before adding the filling.
2. Zest the lemon. If you haven't got a lemon zester, use a grater to carefully take off the zest. You don't want the white pith, just the lovely, fragrant, oil-laden,yellow zest.
3. Juice the lemon.
4. Peel, core and coarsely chop the apple.
5. Blitz the zest, juice, apple, egg and sugar together in a food processor or liquidiser or use a wand blender. Without any of these gadgets, you could try finely grating the apple and then beating all the ingredients together until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Pour the mixture into the tart cases and put in the oven preheated to 175° C.
7. After about 30 minutes see if they pass the 'wobble and see' test. Gently shake the tray and see if the filling is set. Small tarts will have the filling completely set - so no wobble. Larger ones may need a little longer so try again after five minutes. A slight wobble right in the centre is fine but the filling should be set around the edge.
8. Leave to cool and set. All being well, the filling should be firm enough not to flow when the tart is cut and the pastry base will be crisp and not soggy.

Notes
This filling is deliciously tangy but is best appreciated when the filling to pastry ratio is just right and not too deep. It also goes really well with cream. Far be it from me to jeopardise any Lenten abstinence or as yet unbroken New Year's resolutions - I'm just saying, that's all.
I find using the Yorkshire pudding pan to make 9cm tarts, produces a nice dessert sized tart.  To line them I use my largest round cookie cutter then roll the pastry circles a little more so they fit.

Now you might think that having yielded both its juice and its zest that the lemon has given all it has to give. Not quite; put the lemon halves in a microwaveable dish with about half a cupful of water and microwave on full power for a minute and a half. Leave in the microwave for a further five minutes before removing the dish. You can then wipe out the microwave with a damp cloth and any spills and splashes will come away easily. Now you can discard the lemon!