The BEST-EVER Lemon Meringue Tart (Perfectly Tangy & Creamy Lemon Curd Filling)

Today we're gonna make perfectly tangy and creamy lemon meringue tart. This is my favorite lemon dessert. Follow all the tips and tricks for making it successful at home. So let's get started. To make the tart dough, combine all-purpose flour, powdered sugar, almond flour and salt and add cold cubed butter and mix until it gets very sandy like this. And to this add beaten eggs and mix until well combined. And that's it. It's important to chill the dough for about a few hours to rest the glutens in flour. So in the previous video, in the tart crust tutorial, I shared how to roll out the dough and fit it into the tart pan. But just in case you haven't checked it out, I'm gonna go over the process quickly with you. And today I'm gonna use 9-inch tart pan. You can use any tart pan or tart ring in different shapes and sizes. And today I'm gonna use parchment paper. By the way, you may notice that there's a camera over here. Today I'm gonna try to talk as I make this dessert. So dust bread flour all over the surface on the tart pan as well. First, I'm gonna just toss, toss, toss just to ensure it's soft enough. Turn. Yeah, I can see that this is ready. Make sure the flour is applied on the bottom. Okay. And then start rolling the middle to upward and from middle to downward. Turn 90 degrees and repeat. Add more flour if you need to. Check if the bottom is not stuck to the parchment paper and just keep rolling it until it gets two to three millimeter. The dough is right now, it's a little bit too soft to handle. This is gonna fall apart if I try to move it onto this top pan right now. So chill in the fridge just until it gets firm enough to handle. Let's check how firm it is. It may be a little bit too firm. We'll see. If you feel the dough is a little bit too firm, you can warm it up with your hands or you can just leave it at room temperature just until it gets softened to bend. So I'm just gonna cut it just big enough to cover the whole pan. Roll it. Okay, drop it on top. Okay, if it's not on the very center, fix it quickly and pull it inside as soon as possible and then fold the edge. This will ensure that the dough is fit into the corner completely. Check it's all fitting. Now I'm gonna push the sides with the thumb because right now it's not attached. So push well, not just the top, not just the bottom, but all over the side. Lean the excess dough over and cut off sharp. I am using a top pan with removable bottom. Be sure not to hold the bottom because it'll come off. Push one more time just to ensure it's attached and now dock the surface so that the bottom is not gonna start lazing while it's being baked. Don't be afraid to make many many holes so that the steam in the dough can get out from the holes. All right, and now it's important to chill this in the fridge. Okay, next let's make lemon cream. So first mix sugar and cornstarch together and mix with the whisk. Mix well until you don't see any lumps of cornstarch. Looks nice and then set this aside. In a medium saucepan add eggs, whole eggs, and yolks and be sure to save this egg whites because you're going to use it later for the meringue. Yolks goes in. So it's important to mix eggs well before we add other ingredients so that we can make smooth lemon curd. Okay, this looks good and add sugar and cornstarch mixture and mix well and just until they are combined. And next we're gonna add lemon zest and lemon juice. Zest directly on top of the saucepan. Smells amazing. Now we're gonna add lemon juice to it. For me, lemon desserts has to be very tangy, like tangy enough. In the past I shared the recipes for lemon pancake, lemon madeleines, lemon frosting, what else? Oh, lemon mousse. I just love lemon and this is yet another favorite. Okay, beautiful. Add lemon juice to the pot and mix. Mix until well combined. Now let's heat this up at medium low heat. Scrape off the bottom of the pan and try to whisk evenly. Not just the center but also the edges right here because oftentimes you tend to miss the edges and they tend to get burnt. And continue whisking constantly. Once it starts getting thickened then I want to whisk it a little bit faster. Yeah, I can feel it's thickened a little bit so I'm gonna speed up a little bit so that I can make smooth lemon cream and then continue doing so until it starts boiling. If it doesn't look like it's boiling, you can turn up the heat to medium heat. Okay, now it's boiling but keep going just a tiny bit just in case. Okay, now looking good. It looks like pastry cream. It's boiling like this. Okay, it's boiling so I'm gonna stop. I see like teeny tiny bit of like egg whites or egg yolks here and there so this is optional but I highly recommend straining the curd to remove all the cooked eggs and make it completely smooth. As it cools down it gets even thicker so do it right after it's made. Scrape it off really well to take all the curd. Now I'm gonna share the secret to my creamy lemon cream. It is softened butter. So normally when you make lemon curd you add butter to the hot lemon curd so the butter melts completely but today I'm gonna add softened butter to the room temperature lemon curd and by whipping it it holds some air. The texture gets fluffier and thicker. You can slice the tart more beautifully. Right now it's very hot so I'm gonna wrap the soft base. I usually just put it in the fridge for some time to chill it a little bit faster and then take it out when it's at room temperature. So I'll come back. All right so the cream is cooled completely. Okay so add all the butter. So we're gonna whip it up until it gets very nice and silky smooth. Scrape off the side because a lot of times butter or curd is stuck there. Take your time over here and see if there's any butter missed out. Look at this. Silky smooth and creamy. Let's remove the tart from the pan. Transfer it inside the tart crust. I don't want to waste any cream. Spread it either make it completely flat or leave some patterns like this. Now chill this in the fridge completely. In the pot add water and sugar. I like to shake it a little bit just to ensure that all the sugar is wet completely. In stand mixer add egg whites. Ensure that the bowl is completely clean with no liquid and residue so that egg whites can whip up really well. So this is Italian meringue and I love it because you know once you get used to it it's very easy to make and it holds the shape really well. So typically right after I start whipping the egg whites I start heating the sugar and water and by the time the hot syrup is ready we want a very fluffy meringue. So we kind of need to adjust the timing and heat it at medium heat and we're going to heat it up until it reaches 117 to 18 Celsius. Now you can see that the liquid started falling down. I'm going to take it off. All right it's ready. Turn it up to high speed. Slowly add it. We're just going to keep whipping with high speed and once it gets warm I'm going to turn down the speed. So let's keep going. While you're waiting for that get everything ready which is cake spatula, lava spatula and torch if you have. Okay I'll tell you this is a lot of meringue. Just frost as much as you want but it is super crowdy and fluffy. That's why I love Italian meringue so much. This tarte tastes incredible with this fluffy meringue. So I don't think you're going to regret adding too much and you can leave it like this or take a spatula and just create any movement you like. This is probably the most fun part. Now we're gonna torch this. Oh my goodness. Beautiful and this is optional. I'm going to zest a little bit of lemon on top and that's it. Now all you have to do is slice it and enjoy. I highly recommend warming up your knife to cut the tarte more beautifully. So this lemon filling gets a little bit more creamier when it's left at room temperature for some time because the butter inside the cream gets softer. So it really depends on the room temperature but I recommend leaving it on the table for about 15 to 30 minutes before serving. You can use this recipe and make tarts with different shapes and sizes. I often make this tart as mini tartlets because I think it looks super cute and you do not have to slice the tart later. And as you can see you can also frost it using any pastry tip and enjoy. Place the tart in a tight container and store it in the fridge. If you can, consume it within that day or right after it's made. I feel it tastes the best. That's it for today. I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you did, please let me know. That really helps this channel and I'll see you in my next video. Bye-bye!