Happy Birthday to me!

We were lucky to have the last warm and sunny day for our paella party. Today it's cold, raining, and a Monday. But my and my brother's actual birthday is today, so instead of going to the office to help the US economy, I was spending a beautiful cold and rainy day at home, calling my brother (we have 11 hours time difference; not easy to arrange a call at a reasonable time while it's October, 12, in both places), cleaning the house, and baking these lemon tarts.

Then I went to my now super-extra clean kitchen, made Turkish coffee, and sat by the fireplace to celebrate.

The dough for the tarts is the same as in my apple post, made with flour and almond meal.



For the filling I mixed:
grated rind and juice of 3 organic lemons
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp creme freche
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks

I then rolled the dough into 6 small and 3 large circles, lined my 3-inch and 4-inch tart forms, pressed the sides with a fork, poured in the filling, and baked at 350 degrees until the filling set and began to turn golden, about 20 minutes for the small tarts, and 35 minutes for the larger ones.

Warning: both R. and I don't like very sweet desserts, and there tarts are just what we like. If you want very sweet, you should use much more sugar in both the dough and the filling.

The smaller tarts make more sense because they are a perfect serving size; 4 inch tarts are way to big for after dinner (good for a birthday celebration though). However, every time I use my silicon baking form, which is a flexible silicon sheet with six 3-inch depressions, I swear that it's the last time. Because of its flexibility, the form is extremely difficult to handle when filled. Surprisingly, it's also difficult to clean. I understand, it's modern technology and a fashion, but I'll better go get regular metal 3-inch forms with removable bottoms for the next time.