My favorite treat: Lemon tart topped with Italian meringue (crostata meringata al limone). I don’t know if you know that there are different types of meringue. The most commonly used are French and Italian. To make this type of tart, the French one doesn’t work well. The Italian one is cooked while it is being prepared, through the hot syrup that we incorporate into the whipped egg whites. In this recipe, it is toasted a little, a couple of minutes in the oven, mostly to give a different texture to the top of the cake, but it could be eaten directly and it retains its firm and shiny texture, even if you keep it in the fridge for a couple of days, which is not the case, nor can you do that with the French one.
We are not talking about a complicated recipe, but if you have to prepare the base, the lemon cream, and the meringue, it takes quite a long time. Therefore, to make the task easier, I suggest you buy a jar of lemon curd, instead of preparing the cream flavored with lemon zest, with which this type of tart is filled in Italy. I must confess that I didn’t dare to suggest it, precisely because lemon curd is a typically English lemon cream, not Italian, nor from our lands, but, as I have already told you, I wanted to simplify the recipe and, not many days ago, I tried a cake that also combined it with meringue and I found it delicious.
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The card
- Shortcrust pastry for a 23 to 26 cm diameter mold:
- 200 g 00 flour
- 100 g butter
- 90 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 pinch of salt
- Half a teaspoon of lemon zest.
- Italian meringue:
- 200 g sugar
- 40 ml water
- 100 g egg white
- A pinch of salt
- Three drops of lemon juice.
- A kitchen thermometer.
- Filling:
- 275 g lemon curd
- Shortcrust pastry:
- Mix the flour with the sugar and the pinch of salt and arrange it on the marble surface in the shape of a volcano.
- Place the butter, fresh from the fridge, inside the volcano, cut into small pieces.
- Join the butter and flour with your fingertips, without handling the butter too much.
- When the butter has started to join with the flour and sugar, add the egg and the egg yolk.
- Knead quickly, so that the butter heats up as little as possible.
- Once the ingredients have formed a homogeneous dough, form a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge for half an hour.
- After 30 min, flatten the dough with a rolling pin.
- Heat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Cover the base of the mold with it, forming a border that is not too high.
- Cover the dough with parchment paper or foil and fill it with raw dried chickpeas or beans as a weight, so that the base does not swell or bulge while it bakes.
- Put the shortcrust pastry in the oven at 180 degrees for 25 minutes.
- Italian meringue:
- Put the sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Stir with a spoon until the sugar has dissolved and wait for the syrup to reach 120 degrees. (That's what the kitchen thermometer will be for)
- Meanwhile, whip the egg whites and when they start to turn white, add 3 drops of lemon juice.
- When the syrup is at 120 degrees and the egg whites are whipped, incorporate the syrup into the egg whites, little by little, in a continuous stream and without stopping whipping the egg whites. (If you don't have a food processor, I recommend you ask someone for help to perform this operation)
- Continue whipping the egg whites until the container holding them has cooled down.
- Fill the base of the tart with a layer of lemon curd.
- Turn on the oven grill to 150 degrees.
- Fill a piping bag with the meringue and decorate the tart or, simply, place it on top with spoonfuls, forming a fairly thick layer.
- Lightly toast the meringue in the oven for two minutes, watching that it doesn't burn.
- Remove from the oven and it is ready to serve.
