Creamy Lemon Tart Recipe with Almond Crust | Gluten Free (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?

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.

If the filling is runny and flowing out of the tart when you cut into it, then it is likely that the curd was not cooked for quite long enough. You need to be patient when cooking citrus curds as if you heat the mixture too quickly then it can curdle and become lumpy.

Tip 7: Half-fill the tart with custard

Bake it at a low temperature, checking and rotating it halfway through cooking to ensure it cooks evenly, until it's set but still has a bit of a wobble in the centre. The best way to check this is to nudge the pan gently.

Your dough might be too dry or unevenly hydrated.

When dough doesn't have enough water, or if it's not properly hydrated (more on that below), it will feel and look dry and be prone to cracking.

For a richer fix, you can combine flour with butter instead of water. To make this paste, mix two parts flour with one part melted butter and whisk until properly combined. Use this buttery paste to fill in cracks or gaps in the crust the same way you would use the flour-water paste.

Beat an egg, brush the egg white over the split area, and bake for about 10 minutes. The protein in the egg helps to bind the crust together as it bakes, creating a seal over any small gaps. This method also adds a glossy finish to the crust, enhancing its appearance.

If your pastry is hard and tough, this may because too much liquid was added or the pastry was over-handled, resulting in the development of gluten. If your pastry is too crumbly and hard to handle, this may be because too much fat was added, it was over-mixed or not enough liquid was added to bind the fat and flour.

Can you leave a lemon tart out overnight? ›

Can you leave a lemon tart out overnight? It's best to refrigerate your lemon tart after serving to prevent the filling from going bad. Leaving it out overnight could spoil the tart and make it unsafe to eat.

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.

The main difference is that tarts only have a bottom crust, and the crust is much thicker than a pie crust.

There are five main types of pastry dough for creating pastries: flaky, shortcrust, puff, choux and filo. All of them are made primarily from flour, water and fat. However, these five types of pastry dough each have slightly different core ingredients, different ratios of ingredients and, ultimately, different uses.

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.

I think you didn't cook it long enough after adding the eggs. Lemon pie filling has to be almost so thick you can cut it with a knife before you pour it into the shell or it won't set up. So you cook it until it becomes that thick.