tarte au citron

After a long phonecall with PMC, I decided that my third pie-baking attempt this summer would be tarte au citron. For the shell I used a sweetened version of PMC's pie crust (with butter as the fat), and pre-baked it (in two small pie plates) for 15 minutes at 375 F (200 C) with pie weights (euro pennies on a sheet of baking parchment in this case).

For the filling, I mixed two whole eggs, six egg yolks, one cup sugar, a few tbsp butter and about a tsp of salt with the grated rind and juice of three lemons. I heated it up on the stove until it was starting to emit steam (nowhere near boiling), then strained it into a few tbsp of milk (I was out of cream).

I poured the filling into the shells and baked it at 375 F (200 C) for about 10 minutes. I let the tartes cool, and then served them with blueberries, raspberries, and creme fraiche. Awesome!

The above story leaves out numerous mistakes and failures, like using a not-properly-preheated oven, baking at the wrong temperature (so I had to bake longer). But it worked well nonetheless. A mark of food that ain't rocket science: You can mess up and recover.