This summer dessert recipe for lemon tarts that have seasonal fruit is pretty easy to make, and it will be a hit at your next party. These are perfect for baby showers, birthdays, tea party food, and any time that you need a showstopper on a dessert buffet. Make the shells ahead of time and in different shapes, then fill and decorate them the day before the party. It’s a cute mini dessert idea that will impress your guests.
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Supplies that you’ll need.
The kit that I bought arrived in a very elegant box that felt very high-end, and inside were recipe cards, a perforated oven-safe baking mat, a sugar thermometer, six pastry rings, and a reusable piping bag with nozzles and a coupler. It’s all of the specialized equipment that you’d need to make a set of tarts, with a few different recipes included for variety. This is something that would make a really nice gift, especially for someone who enjoys baking or wants to try something new.
- French tart kit (#ad) or: Tart rings or pans, sugar thermometer, parchment paper or silicone mat, piping bad and tips for the meringue.
- Electric mixer
- Rubber spatula
- Mixing bowls
- Cookie sheets
- Parchment paper
- Rolling pin
- Double boiler or metal bowl and saucepan for the lemon curd
- Whisk
- Strainer
- Paring knife
- Cooling rack
Make the pastry dough.
My recipe:
- 12 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened but not completely at room temperature, cut into cubes.
- 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or paste
- 4 egg yolks (save the whites to make a meringue)
- 2 1/2 cup AP flour
- 1 tbsp water
Combine the butter, powdered sugar, sale, and vanilla in a bowl and beat with a mixer until it forms a paste. Add the egg yolks one at a time if you need to in order to help a paste form. Add the rest of the yolks when the paste is mixed, and scrape the bowl to make sure everything’s combined. Divide the dough into two pieces, press them into a disc on parchment paper, and refrigerate for ten minutes to cool.
I followed the pate sucree recipe included in the box, with a couple of small adjustments along the way. I used vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract, I put the egg yolks in earlier in the process than the recipe called for, and I added about a tablespoon of water. (You can get the recipe for vanilla paste here.)
The recipe called for using cold butter, but that stayed firm and resisted blending, so I found it helpful to add the egg yolks a little earlier than the recipe suggested to help everything come together into a paste. Since there was no flour in the mixture at that point, I wasn’t worried about overworking the dough.
If I made it again, I would probably let the butter soften slightly first, not to room temperature, but just enough to make mixing easier.
Once the flour went in, I stopped using the mixer and worked the dough gently by hand so it would stay tender. It still seemed a little dry, so I added about a tablespoon of water to help it form a ball.
I then divided it into two portions, put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, pressed them into discs, and chilled them before cutting out the tart shells.
Roll out the dough.
After the two pieces of dough had chilled, I rolled them out one piece at a time using two wooden skewers as guides. The skewers were an easy way to keep the dough at a consistent thickness of one-eighth of an inch, which is ideal for these tart shells. I rolled them on the parchment paper and covered them with a piece of plastic wrap to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin.
Once it was evenly rolled, I slid it onto a cookie sheet and returned it to the refrigerator so it would stay cold. Keeping pastry dough cold at every stage makes a big difference, since it helps the butter stay firm and gives a better result in the oven.
When the dough was thoroughly chilled again, I transferred it to the baking mat from the kit and cut out all six tart bases directly on the mat.
To form the sides, I cut strips of dough and placed them inside each pastry ring, overlapping the ends slightly so I could press them together. One helpful tip is to make the strips a little taller than the rings, since you can always trim them down later.
The dough was very easy to handle, and I even had enough leftover to make additional tarts.
The most important detail during this step is making sure the dough is pressed firmly against the inside of each ring. One of mine pulled slightly away from the ring, and that shell collapsed during baking. Watching the footage back made it easy to see exactly what had gone wrong. After that, I understood how important it is to make sure every part of the dough is touching the ring before chilling and baking.
Once the shells were assembled, I returned them to the refrigerator for ten minutes, then trimmed the tops so they were flush with the rings. Bake them for about 25 minutes at 320F. You might want to check them after ten minutes to make sure that none of them are collapsing! It they are, prop them up with a piece of tinfoil.
Watch the video of me making the tarts here:
Make the lemon curd.
Next came the lemon curd, which is one of the most delicious components of the recipe. (I have a recipe for lemon and lime curds here.) If you’ve never had lemon curd before, it’s a real treat. It has a silky texture that is richer and similar to a pudding consistency, and it works perfectly as the filling in tart shells.
This is where the sugar thermometer really matters, because the mixture needs to reach at least 175 degrees to thicken properly, but you need to heat it without overcooking it. The curd is made with eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon juice, and it has to be stirred constantly so it will cook evenly. If it gets too hot or sits too long, you risk ending up with bits of scrambled egg in the mixture.
Strain the curd through the strainer so that it will catch any pieces of egg that cooked to remove it out of the final curd. This will keep it smooth in the tart shells. If you’ve never had lemon curd before, it’s a real treat.
Fill the shells.
Once the shells were baked, the rings lifted off easily and I filled each tart while the lemon curd was still hot, since that made it fluid enough to pour neatly into the shells.
I only filled them about halfway before adding blueberries, which settled nicely into the curd as it cooled.
Later I added more blueberries and a few strawberries for extra color, and one tart got a little meringue on top as well. Even the shell that collapsed did not go to waste; I cut it up and used it as a garnish.
There are plenty of ways to customize these tarts, too, like adding melted white chocolate to the bottom of each shell before pouring in the curd.
Eat the tarts right away or refrigerate them for up to a few days.
I really enjoyed using this kit because it had the tools, and the recipes were easy to follow. The process does take some time because everything happens in stages. Still, the instructions were clear, the tools were useful, and the final tarts looked beautiful and tasted really, really good.
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