Tartest Meyer Lemon Tart (TWD)

After the overload of rich chocolate recipes last month, this week's TWD recipe for Tartest Lemon Tart was a refreshing change of pace. I love all things that are intensely sweet & tart (I'm a total Sour Patch Kid junkie), and I was totally looking forward to making this. What is so unique and intruiging about this recipe is the use of whole lemons, peel and all.

I couldn't resist making individual tartlettes. Here are my notes and adjustments (for the full recipe please visit Babette Feasts):

- made a full recipe of shortbread nut crust, using Trader Joe's Almond Meal, and I yielded four 4" tartlettes and four 3" tartlettes.

- I made a half recipe of the lemon filling and used 1 whole meyer lemon (it's the end of their season ---*sigh*). This yielded the perfect amount of filling for the four 4" tartlettes.

I loved how the filling slightly overflowed and formed a brown slightly crispy/chewy crust around the edge. For me, that was the tastiest part of this tart. :)


Creme fraiche would have been a perfect partner to this tart. As I didn't have any handy, I whipped up a mixture of heavy cream, sour cream and powdered sugar, and it worked wonderfully. A handful of tart blackberries completed this beauty of a dessert. So, was this tart ...too tart? Absolutely not! As I used meyer lemons, the tartness was probably downplayed. Still, this tart delivered a wonderfully fresh and bright lemon flavor with just the right amount of sweetness to prevent your mouth from puckering. The buttery, crunchy crust played perfectly with the jammy filling.
Feeling a little adventurous, I eyed a 1/2 pink grapefruit sitting on the counter that was leftover from breakfast .... hmmm...how about a grapefruit tart? I used this half and made a half batch of the filling, which was way more than enough for the three remaining tart shells. Eyeballing what I had left, the half batch would have yielded enough filling for eight 3" tartlettes. The tarts baked beautifully with a gorgeous orange/pink hue, but the taste was a whole different story...way too bitter! I should have removed the pith. Oh well, you live and learn. I still love this idea of a grapefruit tart, so I'm doing to attempt this again soon, sans the white pith. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how it turns out in a future post.
Thank you Babette of Babette Feasts selecting this wonderful recipe! For more beautiful tarts, make sure to explore the TWD blogroll.