What makes this Lemon Tart so perfect? It’s the lemon curd filling. It’s not too sweet but not mouth-puckeringly sour either, and so custardy it just melts in the mouth. This is a classic French tart that’s elegant and pretty as a picture, yet the filling is as simple as can be: just eggs, sugar, butter and fresh lemon!
🇫🇷Welcome back to FRENCH BISTRO WEEK!🇫🇷
Welcome back to the final instalment of French Bistro Week! 🇫🇷 This is a week in which I’m sharing all the recipes you need to recreate your very own French Bistro experience at home. Here’s the menu of recipes I shared:
Starter: Warm Goat’s Cheese Salad – A classic French Bistro starter. This fresh leaf salad sports nuts, bacon, and pan-fried goat’s cheese medallions that are golden outside and oozing inside.
Main: Duck Confit – An iconic French dish that’s so much easier to make than you think! It’s the ultimate make-ahead dinner party dish for showing off!
Side: Lentil Ragout – A traditional side for Duck Confit, these French lentils are mouth-wateringly good!
Dessert: Today’s Lemon Tart – A perfect finish to the meal that’s not too heavy, this is a tart you’ll find in virtually every patisserie across France.
Lemon Tart
Today’s Lemon Tart recipe is a classic tart known in French as Tarte au Citron. Endlessly popular, you’ll find it on the shelves of patisseries all across France, and it’s a favoured dessert served at French bistros or even fine dining restaurants. Tangy, refreshing and light, this tart makes the perfect dessert to follow on from decadent and rich French mains!
About this French Lemon Tart
The filling in this Lemon Tart is a brilliantly yellow, beautifully fresh lemon curd that’s completely smooth. It sets enough that you can cut neat slices as pictured throughout this post, yet soft enough that it melts alluringly in your mouth just like custard.
As for the taste, it’s a Goldilocks bullseye: not overly sweet, not overly sour, just right. I found that other Lemon Tart recipes I’ve tried veer too far in one direction or the other. A perfect balance between the two is my ideal!
The crust I’ve used is a sweet French Tart Crust called Pâte Sucrée. This is an excellent master pastry for all sorts of sweet tarts. It’s buttery and not too sweet, and flaky without being so crumbly that it’s difficult to eat with a fork. Bonus: The dough is extremely easy to work with – even easier than Shortcrust Pastry.
Feel free to use sweet shortcrust if you prefer, or if you’re pressed for time just buy a pastry case! Who’s going to know? 😊
Ingredients in French Lemon Tart filling
Here’s what you need to make the lemon curd filling for this tart.
Lemons – We use both lemon zest and juice for this recipe. You’ll need 2 normal size lemons, or 3 smaller lemons.
Butter – Unsalted butter, cut into cubes so it melts more evenly.
Eggs – Eggs are what sets the lemon curd filling into a custard. We’re using both whole eggs and egg yolks. Yolks add richness which gives the filling a nice and creamy mouthfeel.
Leftover egg whites – Here’s my list of what I do with them and all my egg white recipes can be found in this recipe collection.
Sugar – Caster / superfine white sugar is best, for ease of dissolving. However ordinary white sugar will work just fine here.
How to make the Lemon Tart filling
It’s dead simple: put it all in a saucepan and whisk over low heat until it thickens!
Combine ingredients: Put ingredients in a saucepan and whisk together. Turn the stove to a low to medium-low heat. Don’t fret about scrambling the eggs – the lemon juice and sugar dilutes the eggs enough that they’re won’t easily set!
Whisk over low heat: Once the butter melts, it will become a fairly thin and smooth mixture. Whisk constantly so the base doesn’t catch, until the mixture thickens in a pourable custard – about 5 minutes;
Check thickness: The above and below photos illustrate the thickness you are aiming for. Use a spoon or spatula to dollop some custard onto the mixture’s surface. It should hold shape briefly before disappearing. You could thicken it further on the stove but there’s no need. We are going to bake the tart briefly to set it so we can cut neat slices;
Strain: Pour the custard into a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl, and use a rubber spatula to push it through. This makes the filling completely smooth, and strains out the zest plus any rogue lemon seeds, as well as any bits of the filling that might’ve solidified on the base of the saucepan.
Filling and baking
Next, we fill and bake the tart.
Fill pastry case: Fill the tart crust you’re using (here’s the French Sweet Tart Crust pictured). Shortcrust is also an excellent option, else buy one (a single large or 12 to 15 small individual tart cases);
Smooth the surface: This is easiest to do using a small offset spatula;
Bake: Bake for just 5 minutes. Nothing needs cooking here, it’s just to finish setting the custard without getting any colour on the surface. We don’t want to bake it any longer because otherwise the filling will overcook and become curdled and dry, rather than soft and custardy;
Decorate as desired! I’ve used lemon slices, raspberries and mint leaves. I’ve listed some more decorating options below.
Lemon Tart decoration suggestions
A naked Lemon Tart is a bit plain, so I think it’s nice to add a finishing touch, even if it’s just a dusting of icing sugar / powdered sugar. But here are some other ideas – feel free to mix and match!
Lemon slices
Raspberries, strawberry slices or other berries – for lovely pops of colour!
Mint leaves and edible flowers
Cream – pipe blobs around the edge
Melted chocolate – a thin squiggle of melted dark chocolate artfully (casually!) drizzled across the surface. Channel your inner Jackson Pollock! Or, a handwritten message if that’s what’s called for … 😂
What to serve with Lemon Tart
This tart is terrific eaten plain (2 seconds after snapping the above photos I was buzzing around the shoot room, cleaning up with one hand and devouring the pictured slice with the other!) When serving people, I think it’s nice to add a dollop of something on the side to complete the plate.
Here’s what goes well with this Lemon Tart:
Creme fraiche – Pictured in post. The uber-rich cream plays delightfully against the zippy tartness of the lemon;
Whipped cream – Lightly sweetened with a touch of sugar and vanilla (use restraint, the lemon tart is the star here!); or
Vanilla ice cream
And with that, French Bistro Week is done! 🇫🇷 I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did creating, photographing, filming and writing about the dishes. And, of course, EATING them!!
Got a request for the next theme week?? Pop it in the comments below! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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French Lemon Tart – Tarte au Citron
Ingredients
- 1 sweet tart crust (or homemade pie crust, or store bought 23cm / 9" sweet pie or tart crust)
Lemon Tart filling:
- 1 tbsp lemon zest (1 lemon's worth)
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (from 1 – 2 lemons)
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 12 tbsp / 170g unsalted butter , cut in 1cm (1/2") cubes
- 3 whole eggs large, (Note 1)
- 3 egg yolks (from large-size eggs, Note 1)
Instructions
Tart crust:
- Make tart crust per linked recipe, including blind baking the empty tart crust. Allow to fully cool before filling (to ensure it won't go soggy).
Lemon Tart filling:
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 180℃/350℉ (160℃ fan)
- Whisk ingredients together: Put all ingredients in a medium saucepan and whisk to combine.
- Thicken on stove: Place the saucepan on the stove over low / medium low heat. Whisk constantly, especially as the butter is melting, to ensure it doesn't split. Keeping stirring until the mixture thickens enough to visibly mound (ie. holds its shape briefly) on the surface when dolloped – about 5 minutes, though it might take longer depending on stove strength, saucepan heat retention etc. See video and photos for thickness guide. Don't take it off the stove until it's thick enough otherwise the Filling won't set.
- Strain into a bowl using a fine mesh strainer.
- Fill tart: Pour into tart shell and smooth the filling surface using an offset spatula or similar.
- Bake: Bake for 5 minutes. It will still be a soft custard when you touch it but not liquidity. It will set more when cooled so it's sliceable.
- Cool: Cool tart fully to allow it to set before slicing to serve. Pictured with a dollop of creme fraiche (a thick, rich cream that has a slight tartness, and goes very well with the lemon tart) or whipped cream and even vanilla ice cream.
- Decorate if desired with lemon slices, edible flowers, raspberries. Else pipe on dollops of whipped cream or dust with icing sugar!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
Looking très chic, Dozer!
Mary says
Merci beaucoup! The perfect end to any dinner in my book and it is just beautifully dressed. Lemon anything is delicious. Dozer looks like the perfect gentleman in his beret for a night out on the town. Thank you for an awesome week of recipes.
Mala Annaiah says
Fan
Dee says
Hi Nagi! Are the 50-55g eggs weighed with shell on? Thank you!
Jane says
Thankful for recently coming across your site. Love your recipes, passion & skill set.
Especially loved this week’s theme & recipes. Will definitely give them a go.
As for a theme suggestion, how about some comforting Swedish food as we head into the colder weather here in Victoria.
Deb says
Ahh Dozer Tu regarde. Amour et bisous pour toi xxx
Mmm, Nagi, mmm, Nagi, cette tarte au citron. bon weekend 🙂
Sam says
What a coincidence, I have been reseaching all week for a lemon tart recipe for our guests this Sunday! So thank you Nagi 🙂
One quick question though, did you use a stainless steel pan and did that stop the lemon curd from getting a metallic taste? I have read here and there that it was a risk when making lemon curd, the juice and the metal of pan/whisk not getting along and leaving an after taste.
Eha says
Well, if I am hopefully going to thrill foodie friends with the duck confit a tarte de citron indeed seems a delightful end to the meal . . . Individual tartlets methinks (delightful portion control !) with raspberries and edible flowers and a tad creme fraiche on the side ! Mmm indeed ! And I really must commend Dozer on his acting ability . . . such a perfect je-ne-sais-quoi look knowing that beret would charm any lady dog he met . . . thanks and a happy weekend . . .
Charlie Criddle says
Hi Nagi
This looks amazing. Wondering if I could add a meringue topping.
Pam says
Mum, REALLY ?
Nagi, Lemon Tart the best ever. Especially as we sooo many lemons this year !
Melissa elliott says
This looks delicious – however at the moment we have an overabundance of limes (our lime tree has gone mad and is merrily dropping large lemon sized ripe limes on our heads whenever we walk under it). Do you think that this recipe would work with limes?
Carol says
Awwww That pic of you and Dozer is just beautiful looking at Dozer he looks so relaxed 😌🥰🥰Nagi loving all your recipes all of them are so flavoursome.Thank you for sharing 👍👏🥰🌷
Lorraine says
Wow, you’ve saved the best till last,Nagi. Yum. Dozer looking very suave. 😀
Ailsa says
Ah but Dozer doesn’t mind the odd awkward photo shoot he knows its all about him and his fans and ya gotta give the fans what they want! Oh BTW Im going to have a gi at that lemon tart – meyer lemons should do it – they’ll have to its what Im growing now so if I make the tart then I’m not wasting fruit. Right.??well its my story and I’m sticking to it how much can widening the doorways cost anyway🤣
Mary says
Meyer lemons, they are so hard to come by where I live but always keep an eye out for them. You are very lucky that you can grow them.
Ailsa says
This is our first time growing meyers we’ve never had any luck growing lemons at all regardless of where we lived – must be the only people on the planet that cant get a lemon tree to produce 😃-so I am so excited that our meyer is actually producing ! We are now into cold frosty weather here in Young NSW so hopefully the tree will be ok. Meyers are such a lovely little treat arent they. Hopefully your local store will get some in soon for you.
Dannii Grima says
Hi Nagi,
This looks fantastic! Can’t wait to try when I am no longer on bed rest. Just wondering if I could add a meringue on top
Janet says
Dozer is tres chic in his beret! The tart looks divine, there is nothing better than a great lemon tart. Thanks for the recipe and explanations. You make cooking a lot easier x