Within hours of watching the first episode of the new River Cottage series, River Cottage to the Core, we made the lemon tart recipe Hugh baked for the head gardener, Craig (who incidentally had served us dinner only a few weeks previously on our visit there!).
It's amazing how much the kids love watching River Cottage, often instead of kids programmes. It's no doubt partly down to our enthusiasm for what River Cottage stands for but also the fantastically tempting recipes.
Suffice to say, this tart was absolutely amazing and our son who, not unlike Craig, isn't the biggest fan of desserts, absolutely loved it.
Light and tangy lemon tart by the famous River Cottage - makes the perfect pudding.
Make a pastry tart base using our best sweet shortcrust pastry recipe. I'd recommend a deep pastry tin, the one in the picture above was not deep enough to hold all of the mixture. Of course you could just make two!
Preheat the oven to 150c
Put the eggs (whole eggs and yolks) in a mixing bowl with the sugar and whisk
Add the zest of 3 lemons and juice 3 or 4 (you need about about 200ml) to the egg and sugar mix and stir in
Leave to rest for 10 minutes and then whisk again, leaving for another 10
Strain the mixture through a sieve into a bowl and then whisk in the cream
Strain again into the prepared pastry base
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or so until the lemon filling has just set
Allow to cool and then sprinkle with icing sugar
As well as making the pastry, the kids did most of this - breaking eggs, whisking, measuring and pouring. As always, we helped out with the hot parts but generally they are fairly self-sufficient.
Ingredients
Directions
Make a pastry tart base using our best sweet shortcrust pastry recipe. I'd recommend a deep pastry tin, the one in the picture above was not deep enough to hold all of the mixture. Of course you could just make two!
Preheat the oven to 150c
Put the eggs (whole eggs and yolks) in a mixing bowl with the sugar and whisk
Add the zest of 3 lemons and juice 3 or 4 (you need about about 200ml) to the egg and sugar mix and stir in
Leave to rest for 10 minutes and then whisk again, leaving for another 10
Strain the mixture through a sieve into a bowl and then whisk in the cream
Strain again into the prepared pastry base
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or so until the lemon filling has just set
Allow to cool and then sprinkle with icing sugar
