Happy birthday Chris - Whole Lemon Tart

It was Chris's birthday on Monday, and he had placed his order for a citrus tart as his birthday cake. (I guess if you don't ask, you don't get, right?)

Chris was not specific about the type of citrus tart that he wanted, so I chose to make lemon tart. Now, there are a lot of citrus tart recipes out there, and even narrowing it down to lemon tarts, you can select anything from a fluffy lemon cream tart to a mouth puckering lemon curd tart. I selected a recipe for a Whole Lemon Tart posted by Smitten Kitten, based on a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets. The thing that I found intriguing about this tart recipe is that it uses the whole lemon - you only remove the seeds (and in my case, I chopped the top and bottom off the lemon so that the hard nubbly bits did not end up in my tart).

This tart was very simple to make, and tasted absolutely amazing! It uses very few ingredients, all of which are pantry staples, so there is no need to make a mercy dash to the grocery store for this one. Here is my completed tart, fresh out of the oven and sans whipped cream decoration:

The only changes that I made to the recipe as written by Smitten Kitten were to use Dorie Greenspan's pate sable recipe (from Baking: From My Home to Yours) for the tart shell (because you don't have to roll it out and it doesn't shrink!), and an extra five minutes baking time, because it was still a little wobbly in the centre at the end of the time stated in the recipe in my oven. The filling bubbles away and gets very excited, but you'll know when it's ready, because it turns from yellow gold to a browny golden shade all over - do not be alarmed, this is what it is supposed to do.

I loved this tart recipe for its simplicity and lovely tangy lemon taste. It is a definite keeper, and I can recommend it to all lovers of lemon tarts.