No pressure for me!

I love seeing all these posts for TWD. There were no spots open for membership when I did try....but OH how naive I was....I had no idea about all those rules! Well, now that I am aware....I have no rules to follow. This way I get to see all these creative ways to make Dorie's recipes (especially the ones without a pic) and best of all...

I can make it whenever I want when I FEEL like it!!!! :D

K-man loves lemon and when I saw all these Tartest Lemon Tarts out there....that does it....dessert for tonight!Tartest Lemon Tart
adapted from Baking from my home to yours

Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick plus 2 Tbsp (10 Tbsp) very cold butter, cut into small pieces.
1 large egg yolk
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds

Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in- you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir in yolk, just to break it up and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses- about 10 seconds each -until the dough, which will look granular soon after the add is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change - heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and very lightly and sparing, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

Butter a 9 inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom (I used an 11 inch one is why my measurements are a little different than the book). Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture. Freeze crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

Center the rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Use the nonstick foil and fit foil tightly against crust. Even though I froze the crust, the directions wanted you to keep spare dough to fill in the cracks and that the dough would perhaps puff....so I put pie weights on the foil. No crack or puffiness happened. Put tart pan on a baking sheet and bake crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove foil with weights.

Filling:

1 1/2 lemons, scrubbed and dried
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 stick butter, very softened

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Take a peeler and remove all the yellow of the peel. Use the peeler to remove the pale yellow layer (peeling the lemon once and then twice). Slice the lemons in halves and use the knife to remove all the white pith. (Dorie's book says to use the pith....no way....it's beyond tart, down right bitter. I know better). Using 1 1/2 lemons (without any pith) chop up lemons just enough to remove any/all seeds.
The filling is best made in the blender, (as suggested by Dorie and I agree very little scraping this way). Put lemons and sugar in the blender and pulse. blend and scrape down the sugar until the filling is a smooth mix. Add the remaining filling ingredients and pulse and blend until the filling is homogeneous. Rap the blender container several times to de-bubble the filling as much as possible (I also used a thin scraper to help break the bubble by slowly moving the surface around). Pour it into the partially baked crust.

Very carefully- the tart shell will be full (this is when I was glad I used an 11 inch pan instead of 9. No way it would have fit!) -transfer the baking sheet to the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, then increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake the tart for an additional 25 minutes. Don't be alarmed when the filling bubbles up (and it WILL bubble over the edge and onto the parchment paper I used an 11 inch pan when she called for 9 inch and it still went over!) When the tart is properly baked, it should be set although still shaky in the center and most of the top will have formed a light sugary crust. Transfer the tart pan to a cooling rack and let it cool to room temperature. Chill if you like (K-man prefers it this way- ice cold). Serve with whipped cream or dust it with powdered sugar.

Here was K-man's suggestion....

He wanted blueberries on his....I heated up some with some sugar and a scant of tapioca to thicken...

But I wanted whipped cream to cut the tart....K-man doesn't like whipped cream....but I wanted to try the blueberries as well. Yes, I know...have some tart with your whipped cream!






YUMMY!