Easy Crustless Lemon Tart - Recipe Winners (2024)

FAQs

Why didn't my lemon tart set? ›

A custard with both eggs and starch needs to be thoroughly cooked. The reason is that yolks contain an enzyme which liquidifies starch. It doesn't happen outright, but will happen while your tart is cooling. The only way to prevent it is to heat the mix high enough so the enzyme is deactivated.

Why does my lemon tart crack? The most common reasons why your tart has cracked is because the oven was too hot or the tart baked too long and overbaked. We recommend pulling your lemon tart from the oven when it's still a little jiggly in the middle when the pan is gently shaken. Love all things lemon?

Why is my lemon tart runny? If your lemon tart is runny, the mostly likely cause is not cooking the filling long enough. It should be nicely thickened when you pull it off the stove.

Half-fill the tart case with lemon mixture, then place tart on an oven shelf, ensuring it's level. Fill to the rim with remaining filling (you may have a little left over). Bake until the tart is set but with a little wobble in the centre (about 30 minutes).

Richard's solution: Tough pastry is very common, but easily avoidable. It usually occurs when you've been a bit heavy-handed with the water when you're initially bringing the pastry together (by adding water to the flour and butter), or if you have over-worked the dough and developed the gluten in the flour.

Once you've successfully got it in there, you can relax and let it bake for 20-30 minutes. You will know the tart is done when you can gently nudge the tin and the mix wobbles like set jelly.

Soggy bottoms

And finally, the most frustrating pastry problem of all – the soggy bottom. This normally happens when the oven is not hot enough or the pastry is not baked for long enough. However, it can also be because too much water was added to the dough.

Although lemon curd uses egg yolks and/or egg whites, the final product shouldn't taste eggy. If it does, it may mean that you've overcooked your eggs. In saying that, traditional lemon curd does have a distinct after taste which doesn't sit well with some.

Cornstarch has thickening power similar to Instant ClearJel. Like flour, it lends a cloudy, semi-transparent look to filling. It can also give filling a starchy taste. For full effectiveness, make sure the pie filling is bubbling up through the crust before removing your pie from the oven.

Slang. a prostitute or sexually promiscuous woman.

What does lemon tart mean in slang? ›

For example, the slang for the word “smart” is “lemon tart” — “smart” rhymes with “tart.”

Gypsy tart is a fairly easy dessert recipe with simple ingredients, the filling is made from evaporated milk and wonderfully rich dark muscovado sugar. However, despite a filling comprised of just two ingredients, it can also be easy to get wrong.

The recipe for this tart requires you to boil whole lemons for almost two hours until they are very soft. To create the filling, you blend the boiled lemons in a food processor together with butter, sugar and eggs. Liverpool tart is a British treat. According to Google searches, the original recipe dates back to 1897.

Underbaking: This is the most common reason for gooey lemon bars. The filling needs enough time to set, which can be tricky since oven temperatures can vary and the visual cues for doneness are subtle. Solution: Bake the bars until the filling is just set and no longer wobbles when you gently shake the pan.

Very soft, difficult-to-mould pastry: Either too little flour or too much water or fat was used, the pastry was not kneaded together until smooth or the pastry was still too hot and soft to roll out (to remedy this, allow to stand or knead gently for 1–2 minutes).

If the meringue mixture becomes flat or runny when the sugar is added then it usually means that the egg whites were not quite whisked enough before the sugar was added. It sometimes helps to whisk the whites, then add a tablespoon of sugar and whisk the whites back to medium peaks before adding the rest of the sugar.

Also, Don't Overwork Your Dough!

“You do not want to overwork the pastry [as] the gluten tightens then it's a bad texture. You do not treat pastry like bread; it's more delicate [and] you can overwork it.”