Luscious lemon tart

Serves:

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour (gluten-free)
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 75g butter, chopped
• 2-3 tablespoons iced water

Lemon filling

• 1/2 cup (125mL) lemon juice
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons custard powder (gluten-free)

Method

Place flour, almond meal, sugar and butter in food processor bowl. Whiz until mixture resembles bread crumbs. While motor is still running, add iced water a tablespoon at a time until mixture starts to come together. Tip onto a floured surface, knead lightly to form a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Roll dough between two sheets of non-stick baking paper to 3mm thick and large enough to line a 22cm flan tin with removable base. Roll pastry around a rolling pin and carefully unroll into flan tin. Cursing quietly when you haven’t lined it up properly and the edge of the tin cuts through the pastry… trim edges. Line pastry with baking paper and fill with baking weights or pasta/rice.

Cook (baking blind) flan for 10 minutes then remove paper and weights and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until pastry is golden.

Place lemon juice, water and sugar in a saucepan, bring to the boil and stir until sugar is dissolved. Mix custard powder in some hot water and stir into lemon mixture. Continue stirring until lemon filling thickens. Pour into pastry base, cool for 10 minutes and then refrigerate for a few hours until filling is set.

Serve wedges of tart with thick cream

Notes:

• This refreshing, tangy lemon tart was a much anticipated dessert of my childhood – Mum and Nan made it often. What I like most about it is that it doesn’t contain the heavy cream and egg filling of cafe-style lemon tarts.
• Use a frozen shortcrust pastry tart to make this recipe super-quick.
• Make this tart gluten-free using gluten-free flour in the pastry.
• Recipe created by Melissa Hughes for Kidspot.

Serving Suggestions

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