Lemon tart with poppy seeds

So today I decided to bake something ambitious, because my baking-self-esteem needed a boost after the failed honeycomb, and it would be nice to have something to nibble on during the weekend. So I decided to make a "Lemon tart with poppy seeds", which also originally involved raspberries, but I will not use raspberries in the middle of January, because I am a little bit too environmentally conscious for that. Anyway, this tart involved a weird form of shortcrust pastry. Now if you have never made or used shortcrust pastry, then you cannot understand how brave this decision was, and if you have ever used it, then I pity you. Shortcrust pastry is the dread of every amateur baker, and in Baking Made Easy, Lorraine actually says "I know pastry is the nemesis of the average person's baking repertoire", but also that "this pastry is crumbly, buttery, and completely lovely". Which is both very true, and the only reason I still put up with the stuff. It falls apart as soon as you look at it, you need to cool it in the fridge whenever it becomes "too soft" (without anyone ever knowing for sure how soft "too soft" is), and then you need to blind-bake it before you can do anything else. But the reward when it all comes out nice and crumbly and warm and buttery is just so great!

Anyway, as I combined several recipes for this one, I will just tell you what I did, in case anyone is crazy enough to follow me down this road. The pastry I made is actually a combination of 3 recipes, and consists of 250 g plain flour, 125 cold butter (the recipes did not agree on whether the butter should be cold or softened, so majority rule here), which are mixed together to form fine breadcrumbs (use your fancy kitchen machine for this, if you have one). Then I added 2 egg yolks (the recipes said 1, 2, and 3), 50 g of sugar (recipes; no sugar, 2 tbsp, and 100 g), and the poppy seeds. Now you can of course do without poppy seeds if you do not like them or if you do not happen to be a person who bought 200 g when she needed 20 g and is still trying to find ways to get rid of them. Make a ball of the dough and put that in the fridge for 2 hours. Clean up your kitchen, then do some other important things, like reading the paper.
Take the dough out of the fridge, let it soften somewhat, roll it out on a floured surface until about 3 mm thick, pick it up, and put it in your prepared tart tin. Lorraine tells us here that "if the pastry case breaks, as it may, just patch it up with an odd bit of pastry". Interesting choice of modal there. Surely you mean; "when the pastry case breaks, as it will," Lorraine? If you're lucky, then this breakage does not happen when you have your pastry layer balanced on your pallet knife above the tin, as it did with me. Anyway, just somehow get it in there and get it tart-shaped, and put it back in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

Pastry casing

Blind-bake using baking beans (my boyfriend got me some for Sinterklaas) for 20 minutes at 180 C, then remove paper and beans and bake for another 5 mins. Your pastry casing is now done, and about half of your day has somehow disappeared miraculously. But it is all downhill from here!

For the filling, mix 4 eggs (or 3 eggs and the 2 left-over whites) gently together with 200 g sugar. Add 165 ml whipping cream and whisk some more. Then add the juice and zest of 5 lemons (or the juice and zest of 2 oranges you've lying around, technically turning the thing into an orange tart, but never mind), stir, and pour into the (cooled!) tart case. Bake for 45 minutes at 160 C until the filling is firm, leave to cool, remove the sides of the tin praying that the pastry won't break, and enjoy!

Orange and poppy seed tart!

Split-level tart...

As you can see, the tart came out of its casing alright, but for some strange reason, the filling seems to have split into a yellow layer on top and a whitish layer below. The whitish layer is cooked fine, it has the same consistency as the top layer, just a different colour. No idea how that happened, maybe it was the orange juice that floated to the top of the mixture? Anyway, it tastes great, really fresh and fruity, and the dough is perfect, nice and crumbly with a hint of poppy seeds! So this was a well-needed boost to my baking confidence!