Well, it has been a while since I haven’t been here! But what can be a better start of the year than my blog has got a facelift and after so many years it has got a fresh, modern and fancy design. I hope you all love it as much I do! I started to think about about 3 months ago but haven’t had any particular ideas… and finally during Christmas season I was inspired in so many ways that there was no more excuse and something had to happen. And finally we are now here.

Hardly got back to normal meanwhile my hubby’s birthday was around the corner. As it’s at the end of January always seems just a few blinks after the Festive season…. I’m quite lucky because ha always asks the same dessert year by year so there’s no pressure to bake something showstopper every year.  But this time I decided to make a twist on that and didn’t bake just a normal lemon tart, but opted for a Bergamot lemon-thyme tart. How does it sound? I swear that was awesome 🙂

 

Ingredients:

Serves 6

 

for the pastry:

167 g plain flour

21 g ground almond

62.5 g icing sugar

100 g unsalted butter

2 g salt

36 g egg (it’s about half an egg, so break the egg into a bowl then whisk up with a fork)

for the filling: 

4 eggs

100 ml cream

100 g icing sugar

2 lemons (zest and juice)

5 sprigs of fresh thyme

for the meringue:

75 g egg white

75 g icing sugar

75 g granulated sugar

37.5 g purified water

 

Method:

1. For the pastry, place the flour, butter, almond, salt and icing sugar into a food processor. Pulse briefly until the mixture comes together like breadcrumbs, then add the slightly beaten egg.

2. Pulse again until the mixture sticks together then tip onto a work surface and gather it into a ball with your hands. Knead the pastry just two or three times to make it into a smooth ball. Wrap it in cling film and chill for 15 minutes.

3. Grease 6 x 7.5cm/3in fluted tart tins.

4. Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 5mm/¼in. Cut out circles then line the tins, re-rolling the pastry as necessary. Place the tart cases into the freezer for 15 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 200 C.

6. Cover the base of the tartlets with baking parchment or foil and fill with a few baking beans or ceramic balls.

7. Bake blind for 10 minutes then remove the parchment and beans.

8. Return the pastry cases to the oven for another 5 minutes or until they are light golden-brown. Reduce the oven temperature to 160C.

9. Meanwhile make the filling: mix the eggs, cream, lemon zest and juice, and icing sugar in a bowl. Take off the thyme leaves from the stalks then add to the cream. Mix well together pour into a jug then into the cooled, baked pastry cases. Bake for 10 minutes or until just set but still wobble in the middle.
10. Leave to cool completely then carefully remove from the tins. Place on a wire rack while making the meringue.
11. Put the granulated sugar and water into a pan, then heat on low. Simmer for a couple of minutes until reaches 120 C. Meanwhile put the egg whites into the bowl of the stand mixer. Beat on medium then add the icing sugar spoon by spoon. If all the icing sugar has been added, add the syrup carefully spoon by spoon mixing constantly. When all the syrup has been added the egg white will form soft peaks. And due to the hot sugar syrup the egg whites will be pasteurised and don’t have to bother about raw eggs.
12. Fill the meringue into a piping bag then decorate the top of tartlets. Burn the top of that with a blow torch then serve.