Lemon curd tarts
A quick stovetop curd, with no zest anywhere near it
plus 20 minutes chilling to set firm
Makes 4 small tarts, two each. Doubles the curd easily, though it is worth cooking it in two batches so it thickens evenly.
Lemon curd is one of the easiest things to make from scratch and one of the most often bought instead, which is a shame, since five minutes of stirring over a pan of water gives you something sharper and glossier than most jars manage. Every recipe you will find calls for the zest, and this one leaves it out entirely, because zest is exactly the stringy, fibrous part this diet excludes. Juice alone still carries plenty of sharpness once it meets butter and sugar over gentle heat. Spoon the warm curd into ready-made pastry cases and it sets as it cools, glossy and faintly wobbling, or eat it slightly warm with a teaspoon straight from the pan, which nobody watching needs to know about.
Ingredients
Contains: Gluten, Milk, Egg
- 75 mllemon juice, strained through a fine sieve, from about 2 large lemons
- 75 gcaster sugar
- 50 gunsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 2eggs
- 4ready-made sweet shortcrust pastry cases, about 7 cm across, shop-bought and baked blind
Method
Put the lemon juice, sugar and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.
Whisk the eggs in a second bowl, then pour the hot lemon mixture into them in a thin stream, whisking constantly so the eggs do not scramble.
Tip the mixture back into the first bowl and set it over the pan again. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 8 to 10 minutes, until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon and hold a line when you draw a finger through it.
Pour the curd through a fine sieve into a jug, to catch any threads of cooked egg, then spoon it into the pastry cases while it is still warm. A few spoonfuls will be left over.
Scrape the rest into a small jar with a lid. Covered and chilled it keeps three days, or two if you are having chemotherapy.
Leave the tarts to cool for 10 minutes, then chill for at least 20 minutes before eating, or eat one while it is still gently warm.
Watch-points
- Use lemon juice only. Leave out the zest and the pith, however tempting, since both are exactly the fibrous parts this diet asks you to skip.
- Pass the curd through a fine sieve before it goes into the cases, so there is no thread of cooked egg white left in it.
- Choose plain shortcrust cases with no seeds and no nutty crumb topping.
- Cook the curd until it coats the spoon and holds a line. That is the point at which the egg in it is properly cooked.
Make it more nourishing
- Beat in an extra egg yolk with the whole eggs for a richer, silkier curd with more protein.
- Fold 1 tbsp of double cream into the finished curd off the heat for extra calories with no change in flavour.
- Serve 30 g of mascarpone alongside each tart.
Swaps
- Instead of ready-made pastry cases, use a shop-bought sweet shortcrust tart shell, baked and cut into wedges
- fewer, larger portions from the same curd
- Instead of lemon juice, use a mix of lemon and orange juice
- rounds out the sharpness without adding zest