Lemon and Almond Tart with Thyme Pastry
A very zesty lemon tart with a thyme twist to the pastry. Its easy to make as the ground almond thickens the filling rather than having to use the usual large quantity of eggs.
Serves:6
Ingredients:
Pastry
200g plain white flour
50g ground almonds
150g butter, diced
2 tbsps fresh thyme leaves, chopped
50g icing sugar
1 tbsp cold water
Filling
6 lemons
3 eggs
200g icing sugar, sieved
150g unsalted butter, melted
130g ground almonds
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Gas4.
For the pastry, put the flour, ground almonds and butter in a food processor, whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the thyme and sugar, whiz again and add the water. You may need a touch more water if the mix is too dry. Mix to a soft-ball consistency, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for one hour.
Grease a 30cm loose-bottomed flan dish.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry as thinly as possible, roll the pastry up on to your rolling pin and carefully lay it over the flan dish. Press the pastry snugly into the flan case and trim any surplus from around the edges. Line with silver foil, making sure that the pastry edges are well covered and fill with dried beans.
Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven and ‘bake blind’ for 15 minutes. Take out of the oven, leave to rest for a couple of minutes before removing the silver foil and the beans. Then put the flan case back in the oven for 5 minutes to dry out the base to an even pale golden colour. Leave to cool.
Lemon Filling
Zest 3 of the lemons and juice all of them.
Whisk the eggs with the icing sugar until pale and fluffy.
Mix in gradually the zest of 3 lemons, the melted butter, ground almonds and juice of 6 lemons.
Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for 30 minutes until pale golden and puffy.
Leave to cool, and then dust with icing sugar.
Serve with Greek style yoghurt and a sprinkling of fresh thyme leaves.