Comments on: whole lemon tart

By: Daphne

Daphne — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:52:50 +0000

Mine is in the oven on its last 3 mins run…. so far… no bubbling over and looking good… but the crust did shrink more on one end than the other… hence… that explains why i am tilting the whole pan to one side… lol… First timer with crust, pie, lemon filling and all….. lets see how it goes from here..

By: Viola

Viola — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:55:19 +0000

couldn’t find meyer lemons down under in australia at the moment…
but tried the tart anyway with a regular lemon..
i also used less sugar as i like the tart and bitterness..

although my tart didn’t boil over.. (i made sure i didnt overfill it.. :) )
the tart turned out ugly!! – all lumpy and full of pimples all over the surface!!
everyone thought the tart base was too greasy and i thought the filling itself was also too greasy..

mm..think i’d stick with your awesome lemon bars instead next time for my citrus fix…

By: Tzu-yen 6lumens

Tzu-yen 6lumens — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:20:06 +0000

I have 3 lemons sitting in my fridge (but no corn starch). I was thinking of making lemon tart to bring to work on Friday. This looks brilliant. Thanks!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:14:57 +0000

When I saw meyer lemons last week at the store I couldn’t wait to try this tart. With all the mised reviews….I was up for the challenge…..but prepared if it was less then stellar. Well…let me tell you….Wonderful!!! is all I can say. The crust was amazing and the tart so easy….cannot believe all that deliciousness was from one …..one….meyer lemon….and a lot of butter. I followed your recommendation and just mixed everything in the food processor. Wonderfully easy, delicious tart. Thank you….I am throughly enjoying your website.

By: Meg

Meg — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:25:40 +0000

First off- Deb, thank you for a beautiful, first-rate site. I’ll be a frequent visitor from now on!
I made the lemon tart today for my Dad’s birthday- lemon is his favorite. I had great success with the unshrinkable crust (fab!). The filling was not quite as wonderful. I am a pretty decent baker, and still can’t figure out why only 1 (I like butter) stick of butter would have caused SO MUCH pooling, but it did. I did nothing quirky with the filling, just a nice whisk, and BAM– am a veteran butter user in most all recipes- and have never seen such a lake of butter atop a crust. I left it in the oven (covered in foil so as not to char!!) , and nothing came of it. Thankfully, I found a meyer lemon at Whole Foods, and am hoping that the butter debacle will only be a visual distraction and not affect the taste of the finished product.
Why oh why the many butter-pooling problems??
Thank you though, for such a beautifully presented lemon tart recipe.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:46:39 +0000

Deb,

I have been reading this site for quite a while now, and have had a lot of success with previous recipes. I tried making a test tart before making it for a birthday treat this weekend, and while the Great Unshrinkable Tart Shell worked amazingly, the filling did not. I was prepared for this outcome (based on some of the comments), but what I wasn’t prepared for was what specifically went wrong.

It was way, way too sweet. I used a plain, organic lemon (meyer was not available) weighed out to 4 oz, and a slice of an orange to make up the extra .5 oz. I thought that it would help keep it from being too bitter, but boy was I wrong! I weighed out all the ingredients on a digital scale, but the final result was extremely sugary. I did the entire process in a food processor as well.

I have never thought to comment before, as the recipes have always, always yielded wonderful results, but just in case anyone else was thinking of tinkering with the recipe, I thought I’d issue a warning!

Stacey

p.s. – Again, I love the tart shell, it’s fantastic!

By: Malarie

Malarie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:09:12 +0000

Made this today and it tastes divine! But looks pretty bad. Ended up with charred crust. Could that be because I used a pie pan instead of tart?

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:09:14 +0000

I just made this and it turned out beautifully!

I did follow your lead and use the food processor for the entire mixing process. I added the butter in a slow continuous stream (almost like making a mayonnaise) and I had absolutely no problems with separation.

I wonder if using the food processor for everything vs. mixing the butter in by hand makes a difference?

By: Meilin

Meilin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:04:04 +0000

Please excuse the geeking…

I made this 2 days ago using 1 Meyer (~135 gm) with a different tart crust and filling worked out fine. It had a mild but lovely floral/orangey flavor and set up without issues. Yummy!

But the point of this entry is that it wasn’t until AFTER I made mine did I read all the comments and noticed all the sad cases of oozing butter.

So I did a little research in O’Corriher’s book “Cookwise” and found some reasons why the butter might separate. It sounds a bit like the butter is separating because the proteins in the eggs are coagulating too much and squeezing out the butter. This jives with at least one comment where the longer they cooked it, the more butter pooled out. Things that make the proteins coagulate faster are: acid, heat. Things that make the proteins coagulate SLOWER are (most) starches, including flour, cornstarch, arrowroot, tapioca, potato starch. So if you made this with a regular lemon *and* your oven ran a teeny bit hot, that might be the reason that your tart filling oozes butter. Or if you skipped the cornstarch that could be the problem too.

Other factors: this recipe seems to have much more butter than my normal lemon bars recipe. This might taste better but maybe the issue is that there’s not enough eggs to coagulate the butter. The book says at least 1 egg per cup of milk (or 2 egg yolks) is the minimum and that makes a very soft gel. So maybe for this recipe it would be more reliable with an extra yolk or even a whole egg.

By: Emily

Emily — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:44:30 +0000

I just made it, and oh my GAH was it bitter! However, the tart shell came out lovely, and didn’t shrink at all. And best of all, I just coated a 9-inch cake pan with aluminum foil, and baked the crust in that, so the whole thing came out super-easy and i didn’t even have to buy a tart pan! Also, my filling didn’t bubble over but it did take at least 15 minutes longer to bake, and even still it was reeeally wiggly. I cut out about 2 tablespoons of butter from the filling so i didn’t have any floating on top like some of the other commenters. If anyone out there doesn’t like bitter or, like me, is used to sweet stuff, definitely hold out for a meyer lemon because this tart… oh my GAH!