Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Everything You Love About Summer in One Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

It's Sweet to Share!

This easy lemon tart recipe can either be made from scratch, or from everything purchased at the store. If you go the store route, you’ll need just two ingredients. 

If you go the scratch made route, you’ll need seven ingredients. 

Either way, this easy lemon tart recipe tastes like everything you love about summer. 

lemon tart

Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

Pucker up for this sweet and sour lemonade in a pie. This easy lemon tart is everything you love about summer! 

Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

Lemonade and Climbing Trees 

Nothing says summer like climbing trees and sipping lemonade. I grew up on Main Street and at the top of our hill was a tall tree. It was perfect for climbing, which all the neighborhood kids loved to do, of course. 

One of the boys in the neighborhood even nailed a small plank of wood to the side of the tree, almost to the very tip top, and the goal was always to climb high enough to sit on that plank and peer all the way down the hill. 

That plank finally gave way, after many years of enjoyment, under my sisters unfortunate rear.

We called the grove of trees, the “forest”, and when I was in middle school they bulldozed our forest to make way for a business strip mall. It didn’t matter that my childhood friend, Jenine, and I talked about chaining ourselves to that tree when the bulldozers arrived. 

They cut it down anyway, and it seemed that was the day our childhood ended. Everytime I make this easy lemon tart recipe I think of that beloved tree. 

Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

Inspiration for this Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

This recipe is inspired by Dorie Greenspan. She is a legend. If you don’t have her cookbook, you should go out and buy it immediately!  

This dessert is smooth and quite tart. It’s very French, and though I love and respect the French for their exquisite culinary taste, I like to make a slight alteration to this recipe by adding the cream. 

If you want to make it the original way the chef intended, increase the butter to 21 tablespoons and omit the whipped cream. Pour the hot curd directly into the baked crust shell to set. 

Top Down View of Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

How to Make Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

It’s Lemon Curd + Whipped Cream. 

No really, that’s all it is. This recipe includes how to make Lemon Curd from scratch, but if you don’t want to mess with making lemon curd, you can just go buy some at the store and mix it with whipped cream! 

You’ll need 16 oz of lemon curd.

And if you don’t even want to get the mixer dirty, just buy a tub of cool whip. This easy lemon tart puts the easy in recipe. 

Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

Easy Lemon Tart

Catherine Olson
Pucker up for this sweet and sour lemonade in a pie. This easy lemon tart is everything you love about summer!
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Servings 12 slices

Equipment

  • Fluted Tart Pan
  • Pastry Blender
  • Microplane
  • Double Broiler

Ingredients
  

Crust

  • 1 ½ cups flour
  • ½ cup butter
  • ¼ cup powdered sugar

Lemon Curd

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • Zest 3 lemons
  • 4 whole eggs
  • ¾ cup lemon juice
  • 16 tablespoons butter
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar

Instructions
 

Crust

  • Cut flour, butter and sugar together with a pastry blender until mixture resembles pebbles
  • Drop in a few drops of water, just until mixture comes together
  • Chill dough for 10 minutes
  • Once chilled slightly, roll dough out to ¼ inch thickness
  • Fold in half and lay in a 9” fluted tart pan with removable bottom
  • Shape to pan and press against sides and top, removing excess dough
  • Cover dough with parchment paper and pie weights
  • Bake at Fahrenheit 350° for 10 minutes
  • Remove from oven and set aside

Lemon Curd

  • Rub sugar and zest together in a metal bowl until well incorporated and fragrant
  • Let sit for 30 minutes
  • Add eggs and whisk to combine
  • Create a double boiler over the stove by setting a bowl over a pot with 2 inches of boiling water
  • Fit bowl with lemons, sugar and eggs over the pot of boiling water
  • Heat sugar, lemon and eggs for 5 minutes, stirring constantly
  • Whisk in lemon juice and 4 tablespoons of butter
  • Whisk constantly until mixture reaches Fahrenheit 180°, or becomes a custard like consistency
  • Swap out whisk for hand beaters and begin beating the mixture over the heat while adding the butter
  • Add butter one tablespoon at a time until incorporated
  • Remove from heat and let cool to room temp stirring occasionally while cooling
  • Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming, and refrigerate to chill
  • When set, whip cream to stiff peaks with two tablespoons white sugar
  • Fold cream into lemon curd
  • Spoon lemon cream into tart crust shell and serve
Keyword Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

Easy Mini Raspberry Lemon Tartlettes

Raspberry Lemon Curd Tartlettes

I once made mini versions of this easy lemon tart recipe by making small crusts in mini muffin tins. I filled the tins with lemon curd and then topped each one with a single raspberry. 

They made the perfect little individual bite sized treats! 

Perfect Fruit Tart Base

This easy lemon tart recipe makes the perfect base for a fruit tart.

One summer afternoon, I made this lemon curd cream and I omitted the whipped cream. Instead I poured the lemon cream directly into the shell and let it set. Then I topped the tart with a wide array of summertime fresh fruits. 

Fruit Tart with Lemon Curd Cream Base

Really, the amount of whipped cream you add is based entirely on your personal preferences, and what you decide to do with the lemon curd. For me, it’s based entirely on my mood and/or cravings at the time I make it. 

Should I Strain Out the Lemon Zest?

Like with many things with this recipe, that is totally a matter of personal preference. Personally, I like to leave it in. 

Would this Recipe Work with Other Fruits?

The lemon in this recipe could be swapped out for a number of other tropical fruits to create other truly yummy recipes

  • Pineapple
  • Passion Fruit
  • Grapefuit
  • Mango
  • Guava
  • Orange

If you opt for seedy fruit, you’ll want to strain out the juice from the seeds.

Slice of Easy Lemon Tart

My Must Have Baking Supplies for this Easy Lemon Tart Recipe on Amazon

As an Amazon affiliate sometimes Amazon sends me a few pennies if you purchase from these links, and it does not cost you anything to click on them!

Everyone needs a microplane zester!

…and a fluted tart pan:

…and a pastry blender:

Make This Easy Lemon Tart Recipe

If you make this easy lemon tart recipe, tag @Fahrenheit350sweets on Instagram so I can see it! And I’d love it if you left a review and a comment below! 

More Amazing Citrus Recipes to Bake at Fahrenheit 350°!

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It's Sweet to Share!

8 COMMENTS

  1. Ouch! I can still remember that Alice in Wonderland fall like yesterday. Too bad that tree didn't have lemons at the top, that would have been worth the climb.

  2. Kitty, I was looking for a cool and creamy lemon dessert to use some beautiful meyer lemons given to me. This is perfection and gorgeous!! I'm taking it! lol

  3. I love lemons. How is it that this dessert looks rich and creamy and light all at the same time. I love the way this looks and I bet it tastes just as good.

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