I used to bake all the time, in fact for a while I even had a blog devoted to baking. Alas, life got in the way and laziness prevailed, and I stopped baking regularly for quite a long time. Thing is, I LOVE baking. I love mixing and sieving and rolling and tasting the mixture. I hate waiting for it to cook. But I reeeeeaaaallllly love eating it.
So, now I have all the time in the world, I thought I'd have a flick through some of my old foodie magazines for something yummy. For the recipe I found, we have to go back in time to the September 2012 issue of Delicious magazine, which as it happened had a page bookmarked as something I really wanted to make. This here recipe for a lemon and lime tart:
I've not made a lemon and lime tart before, but it turned out to be quite straightforward. I've made shortcrust pastry loads of times, so that was easy, but I did forget (and it's not mentioned in the recipe) that pastry shrinks when you cook it. I trimmed the top of the pastry to the top of my tart dish, then when I took it out of the oven to remove the baking beans (actually some dried chickpeas, much cheaper and just as good!) the sides had shrunk to about 1cm. I ended up butchering some taller sides with the leftover pastry before putting it back in the oven, which actually worked surprisingly well. Not the neatest of edges, but it did the job.
The filling wasn't too difficult either. Basically mixing some egg with some sugar and lemon/lime juice, then plopping in some zest. It was super runny, which I didn't expect. I thought I might have messed up somewhere but it turns out that's how it's supposed to be.
The actual cooking part was easy but boring, as was the chilling at the end. Those are the most difficult parts for me because I am very impatient, especially when it comes to food. As far as I'm concerned the only place food should be is either in my mouth or my tummy. We ate some nachos while it cooled to stave off the urge to delve in while it was still hot.
This was the outcome:
Just kidding, that's the picture from the magazine.
Here's the one I made:
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It's supposed to serve 12, but that's 12 normal people. We are greedy people.
Also you can see my dodgy edges from where I had to bodge them together.
YUMMERS.
The recipe specifically states that it's best eaten on the same day. While I would agree it was best when it was fresh, it was still tasty a couple of days later too when kept in the fridge. It went a bit juicy on top, and the pastry a bit soggy, but it still tasted good.
All in all, I'd give this tasty tart a 7 out of 10. I'd rate it higher, but I did mess up the edges a bit.