Easy Creamy Lemon Tart, with a bottom layer of shortbread biscuit.
You will need to prepare in advance of having 6 to 7 fresh lemons, and 8 eggs at the ready.
Perhaps a ready made shortbread pie base or read on below the recipe to make your own shortbread base.
This recipe only needs to bake for 25 minutes in the oven, (another 20 minutes if you need to make your own shortbread biscuit base) all without much fuss and less ingredients to shop for.
The fresh "kind citrus attack" of lemon flavours yet so smooth in texture and giving a sweet taste, this kind of intense goodness can be addictive.
To make this more appealing in appearance you can sprinkle icing sugar/powder dusted over the top.
To make the shortbread biscuit base:
1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF
2. Have a big mixing bowl ready, put 2 & 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2/3 cup of icing sugar/powder. Mix until fairly blended.
3. Using a microwave, microwave 1 cup of butter or margerine (approx for 45 seconds), until melted, pour the 1 cup of melted butter/margerine into the flour bowl, mix thoroughly until fine crumbs texture, quite dry yet equally moist bits of crumbs.
4. Using a non-stick pan or with a non-stick mat placed on your baking tart-oven-pan, place and tightly pat the crumbs mix onto the base of the pan, creating a patted base, the thickness of the shortbread should be about half a centimeter to 1 cm thick, because any thicker a layer of shortbread for this lemon tart recipe will turn out to be quite tough to eat.
If you don't have a pan, you can also use those 'Silicone' ones, for this recipe I used one large square baking silicone, and these silicone for baking is resilient under 425 degrees heat in the oven, and you don't need to pre-grease the base or use baking sheets/wax paper either, which is pretty cool, saves more time!
5. Put this shortbread base into the oven to bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven after 20 minutes and let it sit on the side to cool down.
To make the Creamy Lemon Tart:
1.Wash down the seven lemons ready, and using a hand held zest microplane/grater for zesting, zest the skin off three fresh lemons, put that aside.
2. Depending how well you squeeze out the juice of fresh lemons, squeeze the fresh lemon juice of 6 or 7 lemons maximum unto a bowl. I only need 6 fresh lemons because that already gives me 1 cup of juice, and you don't need anymore than 1 cup of it. Remember to remove any unwanted lemon seeds.
3. Add 1 cup of all-purpose flour and using a hand-held mixer or blender (like a bullet blended), whisk this until equally blended together.
4. Preheat your oven to 350ºF
5. Using a small bowl with an electric hand mixer ready, or a food processor, or a bullet blender, place 2 and 1/2 cups of sugar, and also add the grated lemon zest that was put aside. Whisk these two together until equally blended. Set aside for now.
6. Using a Large bowl with an electric hand mixer ready, or a food processor, add eight 8 eggs, whisk less than a minute until loosened in texture, gradually add the sugar and lemon zest mixture a table spoonful at a time, momentarily keep whisking throughout this method of adding the sugar gradually until you have added the whole 2 and 1/2 cups of sugar and zest. You will see a creamy and gooey like mixture.
7. Lastly, pour in to add the 'pre-mixed lemon juice with flour' unto the mixing bowl, whisking together with the egg mixture. This will create a creamy yet soup like texture, this is ok, as long as it is not too watery. Once placed in the oven the heat reacts to all that sugar and helps to caramalize it to a thicker tart like filling, so do not worry.
8. Pour this whisked mixture onto your shortbread biscuit base, and place into the oven to bake for 25 minutes, and do not overbake please.
9. After 25 minutes remove from the oven, it may seem to be runny in texture, not to worry, once it has cooled down, place into the refrigerator to refrigerate overnight, yes 24 hours in the fridge makes that much difference in texture, and best served to eat then.
Enjoy! and just so you know, I love this recipe, it is one of my most baked goods for me to enjoy just to myself ever since I realized the benefits of eating fresh lemons into my diet, it really does help with hypertension.
Did you know facts: Lemon is one of the best remedies for hypertension. It is known to make the blood vessels soft and flexible, lowering blood pressure level. Lemon contains high amounts of Vitamin C, which acts as an anti-oxidant, removing free radicals from the body.
Above photo shows how much this recipe can make, I used one silicone loaf pan of normal bread loaf size, and eight "mini loaf sized" silicone -size: 13.7cm x 7cm x 4.5cm. The mini loaf pans I use to freeze away once it's been refrigerated for 24hrs, they make great gifts too as they are mini in sizes, less hassle to carry and cute.