In order to finish off a Sunday dinner, a simple dessert is often best. For this weekend, I wanted to make use of one of my favorite fruits, lemons. To that end, I wanted to try my paw at making a tart. Here's what you'll need to make this:

For the crust:
1 stick of cold butter, cubed
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour (all purpose)
1 egg yolk
Pinch of salt
2 to 4 tablespoons of ice cold water

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour and sugar. After, add in the butter and egg yolk, blitzing to combine. Finally, pour in the water, slowly, as the processor is running, until the dough comes together (it should feel like wet sand, holding together if you press it together with your fingers). Flour a countertop, pour the dough out, knead it together gently into a disc, wrap in plastic, and chill it in the fridge for half an hour.

After it has cooled, roll out the dough to about 1/4" in thickness, and place into a tart shell pan with a removable bottom (a 9 or 10" pan). Press the dough against the sides, helping to form the fluted look. Butter a piece of aluminum foil and press it, butter-side down, onto the dough. Pour some beans or rice onto the foil to act as weights, and place the tart shell into a 425 F oven for approximately 10-12 minutes. After this time, remove the foil and weights and bake for another 2 to 3 minutes to brown. Once done, remove the tart and let it cool to room temperature.

Now, to make this more than just a fancy looking tart shell, it's time to add some homemade lemon curd (you can buy lemon curd if you'd prefer... but why?)

4 or 5 lemons (depending on the size), zested
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cups lemon juice (from the lemons)
Pinch salt

In the bowl of a food processor, blitz the zest and sugar together until the zest if very fine. Next, add in the eggs one at a time, then pour in the lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. After processing (you can use a bowl and a hand mixer if you want, this just makes things MUCH easier). Pour this mixture into a 2 quart sauce pan over low-to-medium heat and stir constantly until it thickens. This took me about 20 minutes on my stove, your mileage may vary. Now, why do you have to stir constantly? Well, since there are raw eggs in there, if you don't, you'll wind up with scrambled eggs in lemon sauce...

After it's thickened (it should have the consistency of pudding), pour it into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature, then press plastic wrap down onto the curd itself (it will form a skin if you don't) and refrigerate. Pour the curd into the cooled tart crust, remove it from the pan, and dollop a bit of whipped cream in the middle for effect.

Now, the top of the crust did brown a bit more than I'd wanted, but that's just me learning my oven. Either way, the taste of this tart cannot be beat! Unfortunately, desserts like this tend to go quite quickly, so it's best to secure a piece early. Care to place an order?