By Leslie Brenner
Among all the desserts in all the world, it’s hard to think of one more enduringly craveable and satisfying than a classic French lemon tart. At this moment before berries fully rev up (and as cherries and peaches quietly prepare to steal our hearts), a tarte au citron is a deliciously tangy way to celebrate spring.
Sunny and optimistic, the iconic dessert is almost absurdly simple: just a pastry shell filled with lemon curd. Yet it’s so purely pleasurable it never goes out of style.
But what’s the best recipe? After many years of tinkering, I’ve distilled everything I’ve learned into one I think is just right. As with many things that are simple, it’s all about the quality of those components and how they talk to each other.
For the shell, some recipes use a short crust (pâte brisée) with a touch of sugar; others use a sweet pâte sablé, made with egg and lots of powdered sugar. Lemon curds are similar at their base — eggs, sugar, lemon juice and butter, cooked on top of the stove to creamy-custardy. But differences in approach, amounts of ingredients and technique can change the quality of the tart, sometimes dramatically.
The lemon tart’s power to cheer is remarkable. Back in 2008, when the global financial crisis hit, I baked one nearly every day for couple months to keep my spirits up, doing something slightly different each time. Since then, I’ve turned to it whenever I crave that gorgeous lemony blast, experimenting with different crusts, using more or less sugar, changing up the egg-approach, how much butter to use or when to incorporate it. Sometimes, I’d act like a lemon tart virgin and faithfully follow a recipe in a new cookbook, hungry to discover something fresh.
What I’ve learned over these many years is that despite the oft-cited dictum that baking is an exact science, a lemon tart gives you plenty of room for error, and inevitably plenty of joy. There’s more room for improvisation than you’d think. If you know the basics of how to make a crust, you can hardly go wrong, and lemon curd is not difficult or finicky.
I also learned that there’s a world of difference between a good lemon tart and a great lemon tart.
To me, the ideal is a very lemony one that’s not overly sweet, with depth of flavor, a velvety texture and a crust that’s brilliantly tender and buttery. And as a cook, I want a recipe that yields spectacular results every time with as little fuss as possible and in the shortest time.
A short crust pressed into a tart pan, before blind-baking
The question of crust
Choosing between pâte brisée and pâte sablé was easy for me; with a palate more savory than sweet, I’ve always been a short crust fan. Before my 2008 tart follies, I was accustomed to crusts that you form, chill and rest, roll out, fit into the pan, chill again, fill with weights, and bake. I think it was my friend Michalene who suggested I try the short crust in Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Shere (the iconic restaurant’s original pastry chef).
Here’s something beautiful: It doesn’t require rolling. You start with butter that’s not too cold, work it into the flour with your fingers, gather it into a ball, let it chill, then use your fingers to press the dough into a tart pan with a removeable bottom. Chill that, then blind-bake it (no pie weights necessary) till it’s golden. Much shorter from start to finish, less messy, less scary.
It’s a beautiful crust that’s more tender than any other I’ve made. I’ve tweaked Shere’s original a bit over the years — yielding a bit more dough so it stretches more easily into a 9-inch pan, and decreasing resting/chilling time. It’s just as wonderful.
Conquering curd
As for the curd, there’s an aesthetic divide among lemon tart creators: Some fill the blind-baked crust with chilled curd and say voilà, while others fill the blind-baked crust then bake it again with the curd. The first way results in a filling that’s silky and creamy; the second is nicely set and firmer, more like velvet than silk. I prefer the texture of the baked filling, and feel that the time in the oven adds depth of flavor as well.
A lemon tart with an unbaked filling — smooth, silky and lovely, but not the vibe that rocks our boat
To make the curd, you can use whole eggs or a combination of whole eggs and yolks, for extra richness. Personally, I don’t need it to be extra-rich, so I use whole eggs without messing with separating them just for the yolks. (And that way I’m not left with unspoken-for egg whites.) When to add the butter is another question. You can drop it in directly after combining the eggs, sugar and lemon juice, and let it melt as you start cooking, or whisk in cold bits of butter after you’ve cooked the eggs, sugar and lemon juice.
And then there’s the matter of how sweet or tart to make it. Shere’s recipe for lemon curd filling, published in that same cookbook in 1985, calls for 6 tablespoons of sugar (roughly 1/3 cup) for a 9-inch tart. These days, many recipes call for double or triple that much sugar, or more. (A recipe for French Riviera Lemon Tart in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie calls for 3/4 cup sugar; the Pioneer Woman’s Lemon Tart filling calls for 1 1/4 cup.) America’s sweet tooth wants more and more sugar.
Not me. I like my lemon tart more tart and my sugar consumption in check, so my recipe calls for 1/2 cup. If you’re worried that won’t be sweet enough, consider that my bookshelves are filled with classic old cookbooks calling for 1/2 cup sugar for their 9-inch classic tartes au citron: It’s sweet enough for history — and for my husband and his sweet-tooth.
On board for the sunny, tangy treat? Make one next weekend! It’ll be just the thing for an Easter brunch, a special dinner with friends, or a just-because-I-deserve it pick me up.
Our favorite lemon tart: press-in short crust, baked filling, not-too-sweet
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