procrastibaking take one: lemon tart

it is a truth universally acknowledged that a student undergoing exam season must be in need of baked goods...

and so it was that during this exam season several hours were set aside for some baking therapy! this included the night before an exam where I really needed to switch off and so whipped up a batch of fairy cakes - a classic bake that involves so little thought and produces a sweet pre exam treat.

however this was only the warm up for a serious procrastibaking season that featured two tarts! this post will track our first attempt, a delicious lemon tart. this is easily one of my favourite desserts, it hits the spot after a good dinner while not being too sickly like chocolate. making one yourself also involves relatively few ingredients so this was a perfect choice for mine and april's first attempt.

we used a mary berry recipe, as she is the queen of home baking, and it included some really useful hints about rolling out the pastry which is the tricky part. we decided to be good (and waste some more time) by making our own pastry - which went surprisingly well! and it makes the tart taste all the better (even if pride is the only addition!)

all the ingredients ready to go

so the first step is to cube the butter and then cut it into the flour. now I didn't know what this meant at first, but a quick google search revealed it's when you use two knives (or a special tool, but who has one of them?!) to break down the butter into the flour. I found this video quite useful for a visual prompt:

the next stage is to add the egg yolk and water to bring the mixture into a pastry dough. there is quite a bit of pastry resting in this recipe, once before being placed into the tin and then again when the tin is ready.

kneading the pastry together

prepping the tin

rolling out the pastry - remember to well flour your rolling pin and surface

getting a bit cheeky with the rolling pin!

once the pastry is in the tin and has been rested it is ready for its first trip to the oven. it is blind baked at first, we used baking beans but you can also use uncooked rice. once it had started to cook we trimmed the excess pastry from the crust, which started to catch so we used tin foil to protect it from burning.

while this is baking we prepared the filling which consisted of a lot of zesting and juicing!



lemons galore!

once the filling is prepared place it into the blink baked pastry case - it is easier to do this while the case is in the oven (with the shelf pulled out) as you don't have to carry it and there is less likely to be any spillages!

the tart then bakes, filling the house with the most delicious smell ever, which meant - as has become expected - we didn't really wait long enough for it to cool before digging in...!

a dusting of icing sugar finishes this off perfectly, and a couple of raspberries would not go amiss

I am pleased to say this tart continued my love for lemon tarts, the pastry was gorgeous and flaky and the filling was the perfect mixture of sharp and sweet. it was delicious both warm and cold, not that it lasted long in our fridge!

I hope the plethora of photographs and the addition of a video makes up for the delay in posting!

love,
nen
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