Cooking Heston’s Lemon Tart recipe from the Heston at Home cook book
Quickie post: We made this as a dessert to serve after Heston’s slow-cooked pork belly recipe.Our attention was focused on the main course, so we didn’t really document the dessert. Afraid you guys will have to settle for just the one photo and a brief run-down.
As well as several Lemons this recipe requires a phenomenal thirteen eggs (3 yolks for the pastry and a further 10 for the custard). You might think all the Heston at Home recipes were developed specifically for the book, but this particular one dates back to the early days of the Fat Duck, a version of the Heston at Home Lemon Tart recipe was published in the Guardian in 2003.
This is vastly different to the contentious Waitrose Heston Lemon Tart recipe, which is just filled with a mixture of eggs, lemons, butter and sugar. Neither is good for dieters.
The Heston at Home Lemon Tart recipe is a very demanding affair. Just making the pastry is a lengthy process of mixing, resting, rolling, resting, blind baking and browning the tart case. A couple of hours all told.
The custard filling, meanwhile, requires a lot of mixing and then careful cooking in a bain marie. The recipe makes an awful lot of lemon custard, well over a litre and a half. We had to resort to using our largest plastic bowl for this, which somehow got wedged into the pan of simmering water and nearly resulted in a catastrophic spill when we tried to prize it out. Please, please don’t use a plastic bowl.
Obviously, you simply cannot get all 1.5 litres of custard into the tart case. There was well over a pint left over, which froze very well for use a month later (the tart pictured). Our best advice would be to make double the amount of pastry, then freeze half of that alongside it. Both elements can be prepared as normal once thawed.
It’s a really good lemon tart. We didn’t quite get the “wobble” the recipe promises, but we think this was down to certain oven inaccuracies (the first one was still liquid after an hour’s cooking). However, if you are cooking a complicated dish to serve beforehand, as we were with Heston’s slow cooked pork belly recipe, we’d advise sticking to the Waitrose version.
Further Reading
My Cooking Hut – Has a detailed report on Heston’s Lemon Tart recipe, along with some simply stunning photography (via BigSpud)
Made this last week…Disaster , wouldnt set in the oven. I ended up rebaking it again from cold….There`s better recipes out there for something that should be simple to make.
Same here! First time the tart just refused to set. Assumed this was a problem with oven temp calibration?
We understand Heston’s quest for the perfect texture of lemon tart, but totally agree with you – it’s a lot of faff for a simple dish.
Gordon Ramsay has much simpler recipe on BBC Good Food’s site. Might have to test them out against each other in a future post.
I think the reason mine didn’t set was that the eggs weren’t large enough. The diff bw 13 large eggs and 13 medium is quite a bit of egg!!
Hi Lucas! Thanks for reading.
I totally agree, it’s a staggering amount of egg. And it makes an absurd amount of filling.
One day I’d like to pitch this recipe against the Waitrose version with no cream and see which one is best. How did you get on with the low oven temperature?
I have made this tart many times and have never had a problem with it, i find it worth the effort.
I agree that it makes way too much filling however I just cook the remaining filling in some jars and use it as lemon curd, to be eaten later
Hi Andrew!
I have to say that while it can be seen as quite a lot of work I do really enjoy the longer lemon tart (not that shitty Waitrose recipe).
I’ve made lemon tarts since then and this recipe, not other easier ones, is the one I always go back to.
Thanks for reading, and I wholeheartdly agree about the curd being worth saving 🙂
If you haven’t already tried this recipe I would strongly suggest making his Arlette with Pressed Apple Terrine. There is a lot of work and time involved in the making of it but it is well worth the effort.
One problem i have found in some of Heston’s recipes is that as I live in Australia its hard or very expensive to get some of the ingredients so I have to do a lot of substituting.
I LOVE apple desserts and I really do fancy this. It seems like it’s incredibly close to a couple of the dishes that have been served at both the Fat Duck and Dinner, too.
I think Tipsy Cake would be our next dessert project, but then I reckon wed tackle this one next as it does look splendid. Also, massive respect to you for having a go, please link to pictures if you have them 🙂
I always forget that native Australian ingredients can be hard to come by, and you’d expect there to be more availability considering how popular Heston is there. At least console yourself with the knowledge that the quality of your produce and your beef are probably leagues ahead of anything we can come by in the UK. After all, isn’t Australian Wagyu considered significantly better than actual Japanese Wagyu?
I do have some photo’s I’ll have to find them. Yeah our produce is amazing as well as out meats, to certain people is better, I find it generally better than Japanese Wagyu. It can actually be a bit annoying when Heston says the weight then gives an approximation of how many of the produce that will be, its never accurate, we seem to grow everything bigger here.
About once every six months I do a 3 course Heston lunch with sides for friends and family. I find it a good way to complete to try a lot of the recipes if you can plan and have good time management.
I have just purchased The Fat Duck Cook Book in search for some more challenging recipes. Are there any recipes you can suggest trying?