Apparently Santa shops at Trader Joe's because one of the items in my stocking was a jar of Trader Joe's lemon curd. I usually make my own, but lemon curd is not my favorite thing to make so I was happy to try the store bought. The Trader Joe's lemon curd was a lot richer and thicker than my homemade and a bit sweeter, too. Overall I was happy with it and it was perfect for making this Lemon Curd Tart.
This recipe is originally from Bon Appetit and comes with a recipe for lemon curd should you choose to make your own. The crust is made with both olive oil and butter, so it's rich and crumbly and bakes into a soft cookie-like texture.
The original recipe calls for almonds, but pecans work well too. Here's a photo of the finished tart taken with bad night time lighting.
And here it is cut. All it needs is some berries for garnish!
Oh, and one last thing -- I used Corto brand olive oil. We first tried it at a restaurant so I tracked it down on Amazon. It's definitely one of our favorites.
Recipe
Lemon Curd Olive Oil Tart
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons pecans or almonds
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour or pastry flour
- ¼ cup confectioners sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into chunks
- 1 large egg yolk
- 3 ½ tablespoons good extra virgin olive oil
- 1 jar prepared lemon curd or 1 ½ cups homemade
- Homemade sweetened whipping cream or whipped topping
Instructions
- In a food processor, process pecans with flour, sugar and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture is coarse.
- Add yolk and oil and pulse until just incorporated and a very soft dough has formed.
- Spread dough evenly over bottom and up side of pan, then chill for 30 minutes.
- While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Bake chilled tart dough until golden brown all over, about 13 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely, about 30 minutes.
- Spread lemon curd over cooled shell. The amount you use will depend on the richness of the curd. I found that with Trader Joe's brand I only needed about ⅔ of the jar.
- Garnish the sides with whipped topping or freshly whipped cream. Since you'll already have your food processor out for the crust, I recommend making whipped cream in the food processor. Just put about 6 oz of cream in the processor (make sure it's super clean, of course) and process until it starts to thicken. Add 2 tablespoons of confectioners' sugar and ½ teaspoon of vanilla and process until thick and creamy.
Sue says
I've never tried prepared lemon curd. Sounds like a fun thing to try!
Cardamonbraid says
After further investigation there are 65-67 pecans to a cup so doing the math we are looking at 8-9 per 2T/1/8 cup.
Anna says
That's a really great question. The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of almonds, so when I made the substitution I just casually scooped up 2 tablespoons of pecans. They were heaping tablespoons, so technically it was probably closer to 3 tablespoons, so I'll add a note. There's a pretty low proportion of nuts here. I don't think you'd want to leave them out completely because they add flavor and texture, but anywhere from 2 tablespoons to probably as high as 1/4 cup would be okay. Weight would definitely be more accurate in most cases, but I don't think it will matter in this case. This was a really soft dough and more like cookie dough than tart crust.
Cardamonbraid says
Okay this intrigues me, I don't have TJ lemon but last time I was there I picked up the lime. My question is are the nuts finely chopped before measuring cuz that is an awful small amount to measure, wonder if going by weight might have been easier....