One August, when I was 10 years old and vacationing with my family in a village in Provence, we decided to try lemon tarts from all the patisseries within a 20 minute drive. Every day we collected our sample to rigorously evaluate its merits and demerits. Was the dough as crispy and crumbly as a cookie? Was the curd silky smooth, yet tart enough to make your eyes squint before the buttery sweetness hit?
This recipe meets those criteria and more, and even has a time-saving tweak. Instead of a classic pie crust, which requires a rolling pin and all your patience, I use a foolproof, smoosh-it-in-the-pan dough made with melted butter. It’s a breeze to throw together and bakes as crisp as a shortbread, but it’s thin enough that there’s plenty of room for the lemon curd filling.
Besides being easy, the melted butter has another surprising benefit. Cook it until the frothy white milk solids fall to the bottom of the pan and the fat turns amber and smells like hazelnuts. The resulting brown butter crust may not be traditional, but the caramel flavor is the perfect complement to the clear, sour curd.
The only tricky part here is baking it just long enough. Because the curd is cooked on the stove first, it only needs a few minutes in the oven to settle into the crust. Shake the pan gently: when the pie is done, the center should shake, but the edges will remain. The center will harden as it cools.
However, don’t rush the cooling time. The baked pie needs at least two hours to rest. If the curd still looks a little runny even after that, put it in the refrigerator for an hour or two to set before cutting.
The crust remains crispiest if served the day you bake the pie. But it’s almost as heavenly (albeit a little softer) a day or two later. Store it in the refrigerator and eat it cold, or let it come to room temperature. It’s excellent in both directions.
Lemon tarts don’t need an accompaniment like ice cream or whipped cream. One sublime yellow wedge is enough on its own, perhaps paired with an espresso – though my inner 10-year-old still craves a glass of cold milk and dreams of sun-soaked Provencal afternoons.