Tarte Au Citron

The tarts I posted photos of yesterday were made with this recipe from the wonderful book French Tea by Carole Manchester. I highly recommend it if you're a lover of fancy pants tea cookies. The almonds in the crust of this tart add a wonderful richness of flavor while the powdered sugar keeps it all surprisingly light. Perfect for summer.

For the Pastry:
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
2/3 c powdered sugar
3 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp ground almonds (you know how I feel about blanching, so I skipped that with no discernible problems. I used a clean coffee grinder to get them really deliciously fine.)
1 stick cold butter
1 large egg lightly beaten

Combine flour, sugars, almonds in a food processor. Cut butter into pieces and pulse until you have a coarse meal that looks like damp sand. Add a bit of egg until you have a ball (you might not use it all). Form a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 30 mins.

Meanwhile, make the lemon filling:

1/4 pound thin skinned lemons such as Meyer (2 small or 1 large)
1 1/4 c granulated sugar
3 medium eggs
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp melted butter

Cut lemons into thin slices and remove seeds. Then put whole into food processor and puree. Add sugar, then eggs one at a time, then cornstarch. Finally, add the melted butter untill well combined. Should have a lovely fluffy velvet consistency.

Preheat oven to 325. Now roll out the pastry crust and line a 9" pastry shell with it. Leave it a bit thicker than you would with a pie- it makes a great complement to the lemon flavor. Then pour filling inside and bake for 50 minutes or until filling is golden brown. Serves 8. (Try it with pink champagne too!)