Dorie Greenspan's Tartest Lemon Tart

Dorie Greenspan is a fancypants chef, cook, baker, food writer of delectable treats. Laurie, from Quirky Cupcake, runs a site called Tuesdays With Dorie, in which amateur cooks across the world all attempt a different Dorie recipe each week, picked by the floggers from one of her books. It is fascinating the way that one recipe can have so many variations among bakers. Participating in the blog sounds fun, but there are a couple of reasons why it is not logical for me.

1. It would get expensive buying all those special ingredients every week
2. I absolutely do not have the time for baking something new each week, it seems like each day is over before I know it!
3. I would probably weigh about 400 pounds if I had to eat an entire pastry every week. Not that I wouldn't LOVE to, or think that I couldn't, because I certainly would dig in and eat the entire dish if there were no consequences! I think I will try to keep my dessert-making down to about once a month!

Everyone who participates in the site posts pretty pictures of their creations on their own flogs, along with tips on how they tweaked the recipe or made it easier or different in unique ways. Since I come from a family of lemon-lovers, when I saw this recipe, I knew I HAD to try it.

Wow, is that the ugliest tart you've ever seen? I think it's looking at you!

The problem with tarts and pies is that you have 2 recipes: you have to make the shell, as well as the complete dish. I started with the recipe for Sweet Tart Dough, under the recipe for French Pear Tart (wow, does that look delish!) by Dorie Greenspan. I made the dough and stuck it in the freezer for what ended up being a week (see reason #2)! That's okay, it still turned out great.

(Photo courtesy of the BF, who is learning how to become a master photograper)

Then I followed the recipe for Dorie Greenspan's Tartest Lemon Tart. It calls for 1 and a half WHOLE lemons, skin and all! I changed the recipe by removing the lemon peel first, to remove some of the bitterness. I used 2 lemons; one big and one small. I actually made the tart filling in the blender (the bf has the most kickass blender ever!), and that really mixed everything up great. I know, my pictures totally suck, but man, I pretty much devoured that entire thing in a couple of days. I give this recipe 4 stars, only because I think that lemon squares would have been easier to make, a lot less messy, and just as delicious.