So a couple of weeks ago meyer lemons came into season, so I bought pretty much all their stock. Well, maybe half. But it was almost a kilo worth of lemons! Why do I get so excited about these lemons? Because they are sweeter and richer coloured than normal lemons. And are soooo gorgeous and tasty and make a great kicking honey lemon tea. However, they also make amazing lemon curd!

I’ve never considered myself capable of anything that requires recipes, which is why I favour savoury dishes. But I just happened to have lemons, lots of eggs… and spent $40 on a granite pastry board (yes, there was marble but I like granite better). Plus my local cafe gets these absolutely amazing lemon meringue tarts from a bakery called Boulangerie 113, and I figured I may as well mimic it. And mimicked I did, quite well in fact, if I do say so myself.

I wasn’t after super complex recipes, so I just grabbed the simplest ones I could for shortcrust pastry and lemon curd. Just flour, butter, egg yolk, and ice water for the pastry, and lemon, egg + yolk and butter for the curd.

When I was making the pastry, the instructions said to stop mixing in more water as soon as the dough came together, so I did. Then I popped them in the fridge, and me being me, had a total freak out when they turned rock hard!!! But since I’m a genius, I just added a bit of water and kneaded it a bit more before being able to roll it out. And it was quite flexible too, as I put them in some ramekins. Since I had already visualised what I wanted these tarts to look like, I knew that the ramekins would be the perfect size.

I didn’t even look up how to cook the pastry. I figure I’d just blind bake it like I see on TV. So in they went for about 10 minutes, and when I next opened the oven, they were browning on the edges. Perfect! So I took them out to cool.

I made enough pastry for possibly 2 more ramekins, but I hadn’t planned ahead to have any leftover, so I put the rest in the oven for either a makeshift base, or for crumbs.

Then it was curd time! I was terrified of making curd since I’ve heard about nightmare egg in curd. I also wanted it to be lemony, so while I halved the measurements of a recipe, I actually kept the full amount of lemon juice recommended. One thing I forgot, was that as it simmered down, the flavour intensified. So at first it wasn’t lemony enough, and by the end of it, it was super tasty – I like it tart! Pun intended. I felt like I had reduced it a tad too much, but by the end of it, it was at the right consistency.

The hardest part was the meringue. I didn’t have a food processor for the pastry, but that was a minor issue. The meringue, on the other hand, was a feat of endurance that I did not have! Now the meringue that Boulangerie 113 make are super smooth and creamy, whereas I’m used to sugary meringue. So I figured, hey, why not – I’ll put some icing sugar in my whites! And some good old caster sugar. And spent a long time whipping. Oh wow, my super weak arms died several times before I got the peaks to stand. But it was well worth it!

I also had no blow torch, but who needs one when the secret is that meringue is an excellent insulator so I could put the entire tart under the grill! That way, I got some nice browned top while the rest of the tart stayed cool. And voila, a funny looking lemon meringue tart!

And yes it was super tasty – like omg i can’t believe i made this and that the tartness is perfect and the pastry is nice and crumbly and buttery and it didn’t actually go hard like i thought it would and the meringue actually browned without me setting the house on fire or using candles in the most unorthodox way and when all combined the sugar was just right to offset the lemon and omg the base it actually didnt destroy itself yay.

THE LIME HARVESTER IS HAPPY.