TWD: Tartest Lemon Tart

This week’s Tuesday With Dorie recipe was Tartest Lemon Tart, a recipe that utilizes an entire lemon (and a half). I had seen this Whole Lemon Tart on Smitten Kitchen a few months back, and like most of the recipes I see there, was intrigued by it, but hadn’t gotten around to giving it a try (again, like most of the recipes I see there). For a moment I thought using a whole lemon sounded peculiar, but then I thought about how often lemon zest is used in baking, and it didn’t seem strange. I was hoping to use Meyer lemons, since they are so sweet and delicious, but I didn’t see any at Whole Foods when I went shopping. They were stocking lemons as I meticulously searched for the perfect ones for my tart, and a produce guy handed me an enormous one – score!



I decided to make an entire tart rather than a pared down version this week and bring it to my book club. Then I remembered there was a birthday at work on Monday, so I decided to bring the tart to work instead, which turned out to be an auspicious decision, as my book club was postponed until next week. I thought it was kind of fun pulverizing a whole piece of fruit in the food processor, and I was amazed at how quickly this impressive dessert came together. From reading the Problems and Questions on the TWD site, I had anticipated the tart being a bit tangier than mine was - I even used a second half lemon in addition to the giant one. In fact, when I had my boyfriend taste the filling, he thought it was too sweet for a lemon dessert, so I added some extra zest.



I thought the tart was good, but not spectacular. On Sunday evening I ran a couple extra miles in order to have some of the Lemon Icebox Cake from my last post, and I don’t think I would do that for this dessert. My co-workers enjoyed it though, and I had fun making it, so overall it was a success. This recipe gets a 7 for Deliciousness and a 3 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 2.33. Many thanks to Babette of Babette Feasts for giving me a chance to hone my tart skills. You can find the recipe on Babette’s site, and see what the other bakers thought of it via the TWD blogroll.