Munchie Monday: Lemon Curd Tarts

 Just a quick note about finding recipes, and presumably anything else, on the Internet:  don't bet your life on those things!

Last week we had Book Group.  We had read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  I thought a nice little plate of lemon curd tarts would be just the thing for a treat to share.  This is the recipe I found on the Net:

Lemon Curd

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup white sugar (If I was to write the recipe I think I would have said "granulated sugar".  That was the first clue...)

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 large eggs

1 Tablespoon lemon zest

The directions said: Combine lemon juice, sugar, eggs, butter, and lemon zest in a 2-quart saucepan.  Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens and bubbles.

That is it.

This is what I did...I put the ingredients (except the lemon zest since our lemons were just slightly past their prime zest-making spot) in the top of a double-boiler since I know myself to be easily distracted during the stirring part of cooking projects.  I did whisk forever.  Well, I put a time running to be sure. After 5 minutes the the curd was not even remotely thickened so I cooked longer.

After about fifteen minutes I dumped out the boiling water, dried the bottom saucepan then dumped the lemon mixture into the saucepan.  I cooked longer until it was bubbling a tiny bit and semi-thick seeming. I put the curd through a stainless steel strainer in case there were any bits of egg white hiding in the sweetness. It turned out that even though I could not see any egg white, when I strained there was a small amount.

After dipping a spoon into the "sauce" and finding the spoon well-coated with lemon lusciousness, I licked it clean.  It was SO TASTY!  But not very thick. Well, not at all thick as I had expected it to be.

I had made some darling little pie crust cases for the lemon curd tarts.  All right, I did NOT make the pie crust, I got some refrigerated crust from the store but I DID cut it up with a cookie cutter into little rounds that I shoved down into the bottoms of mini muffin tin reservoirs. I baked them at 400 degrees F. for ten minutes then pulled them out of the oven.  They would have been prettier if I had left them in longer to get them nice and brown, but I did not dare.  Burning, or as I like to call it, chocolatizing, baked goods is a real danger at our house.

So what was I going to take to Book Group for treats since these babies were not going to make it?  (I did fill five little shells with the very thin lemon curd.  They were tasty but not right so I could not bring them.  I do have some standards!)

What I did was toast some whole wheat bread, cut off all the crusts, spread some rather dry egg salad which did not have much personality (we had made the egg salad when we had company coming for lunch where I was concerned they might not like the rich robust egg salad I like with lots of onions and spices...), sliced some green queen olives and put on top.  This was rather boring, but edible and something to bring and share with the other ladies.

A funny note:  when I got back from Book Group meeting, I discovered that Dear One had eaten all the little empty tart cases!  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I asked him if he liked them.  He said, "Sure."  How funny is that?!

A final note on the lemon curd:  I had put the thin lemon curd in a ceramic bowl and put it in the refrigerator...after licking another spoon of the deliciousness.  The next morning the lemon curd was lovely and thick and perfect!!!  That internet recipe never mentioned you needed to chill the heck out of it...

Live and learn.  And maybe don't wait until the afternoon of an event before making treats.  Perhaps make a test batch the day before just to try them out.