10 Organic Lemons

[Shaya]

Fine, if you dont like lemonade, just make a really nice Lemon Ice/Sorbet...they last forever in the freezer, and are a great palate cleanser when you have a nice meal.

Depending on how sour you like it (I Love it sour) I would just add a bit of water, and maybe a tiny bit of simple syrup.

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Simple syrup - um, do you mean a suger/water mixture?

Although this may not be too important, as I like it sour too.

[sadistick]

Yah, equal parts sugar and water.

I would also strain the lemon juice to assure a smooth sorbet...Other than lemon juice, just cut it with a bit of water as you dont want PURE lemon, althought it would be interesting to see the look on your guest faces...laugh.

[Shaya]

Hi All - This morning my 2-year-old and I made TarteTatin's pate brisee and Herme's lemon cream. Firstly, thank you so much to turning me onto making lemon curd - it's a delicious use of lemons, and very far from my realm of everyday cooking.

Patrick - I have to confess that since I don't have a blender I had to make a judgement call on mixing in the butter and I decided to use the whisk attachment on my stand kixer. I ended up with a beautifully thick, whipped cream - is this what they call buttercream?

So two questions:

(1) Do I now have the right texture or do you think I would have been better off using the paddle?

(2) Also, my little guy keeps mentioning he would like to have the tart with chocolate. I've read somewhere that a thin ganache can be added - how would I accomplish this - would I blind-bake the shell first and then add melted chocolate mixture and pour lemon cream on top?

[jefferyc]

Zest them all first, put the zest in vodka for a month, add some simple syrup and you have lemoncello. A very tasty drink.

[Bond Girl]

Anyone has a good recipe for lemon curd?

[Shaya]

Here is my first project - my first Tarte au Citron, it was delicious, but man, what a LOT of butter. After making it I realized there was as much butter in Herme's creme as my entire family used throughout the 23 years I was living at home!

This was also my first successful pate brisee - thank to TarteTatin for the really good directions.

ETA:

Pateick, I just found the thread where you have a gorgeous photo of your finished Herme's tarte - the glaze looks gorgeous, but complicated - this is as far as I can go with a dessert these days! Your other lemon creations look fantastic as well.

Edited March 4, 2006 by Shaya (log)

[Shaya]

Anyone has a good recipe for lemon curd?

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Try these threads:

Lemons

Lemon Curd

[Patrick S]

Anyone has a good recipe for lemon curd?

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You can find lots of recipes, recommendations, pictures and commentary on this thread.

[Patrick S]

Patrick - I have to confess that since I don't have a blender I had to make a judgement call on mixing in the butter and I decided to use the whisk attachment on my stand kixer.  I ended up with a beautifully thick, whipped cream - is this what they call buttercream? 

So two questions:

(1) Do I now have the right texture or do you think I would have been better off using the paddle?

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I would recommend using a paddle if you don't have a stick blender, but the truth is that the texture is going to be different if you use anything but the stick blender, because you'll whip air into it. Using a stick blender, it looks like a shiny, yellow pudding (see below). I doubt it will harm the taste though. As you say, it probably will taste like a lemon buttercream.

Also, I can't tell if you baked it or not, but let me point out that you'll want to spread the lemon cream into a prebaked tart shell --once you've added the butter, you don't want the lemon cream to get hotter than 140F.

Congrats, and hope you enjoy it, Shaya!

Edited March 4, 2006 by Patrick S (log)

[Shaya]

I would recommend using a paddle if you don't have a stick blender, but the truth is that the texture is going to be different if you use anything but the stick blender, because you'll whip air into it. Using a stick blender, it looks like a shiny, yellow pudding (see below). I doubt it will harm the taste though. As you say, it probably will taste like a lemon buttercream.

Also, I can't tell if you baked it or not, but let me point out that you'll want to spread the lemon cream into a prebaked tart shell --once you've added the butter, you don't want the lemon cream to get hotter than 140F.

Congrats, and hope you enjoy it, Shaya!

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Gorgeous-looking cream, Patrick (your photos are so beautiful) - mine definitely resembled a buttercream moreso than a pudding.

Re: baking - yes, it is cooked. I baked off a pate brisee shell that I made and then I added the lemon cream and baked at 325c for about 10-12 minutes - until it looked like it had changed somewhat but the butter had not separated. Since I've never eaten a tarte au citron (I'm not much of a sweet person!) I had to take a guess.

Re: the immersion blender - I do have one of those! And I notice you mentioned to use it in an earlier post. However, the instructions for Herme's Tart Lemon Cream I found in a lemon curd thread said to put it into the bowl of a blender - and I was working from these directions when I made the tarte.

I've learned a lot, and we all enjoyed the tart tremendously.