Lemon Curd Galette? Tart? Cake?

   
   The good thing about having a smart phone is, during boring lessons, while the tutor is droning on, you can look for recipes, adapt them, plan what to buy on the way home, and EXECUTE when u get home. 

   It all started when I was reading the New York Times one evening and there was this awesome story with what seemed like a great recipe. The next morning in my boring class, my mind came back to it again and the lemon curd galette still seemed like an awesome idea in broad daylight. Just make the galette, top with some lemon curd.


    I've heard of lemon curd, and I like the idea, and my friend let me taste some awhile ago. It was very sweet but intensely lemony so I thought it'd be a nice change from the standard chocolate chip cookie sort of baking I usually do. Of course this also means... I have never make lemon curd before! (but of course such a piddling concern would not stop me..)

    The recipe did not include lemon curd, so in the end I found a lemon curd recipe somewhere else and followed that instead. Look at the picture. How do you think it turned out? AWESOME RIGHT??? right! And trust me it tasted amazing... At first it's really sweet and intense but the delicate lemon scent lingers and lingers, and there was no eggy aftertaste in the curd. 

    I made the galette dough twice, and followed the recipe as accurately as I could but the dough still rose in baking and turned out to be like a super rich butter cake. The crumb was loose and the edges cookie-like.


    It still worked because there was a balance of crunchy and soft and sweet.  I suspect the rise is due to the double-acting baking powder I used. I need to buy some regular baking powder and try this again. Fortunately it still looks alright. Just a little... different... from the NYT picture.

   The curd was really runny because I think the eggs    were not large enough. XL eggs from here and XL eggs in the US are from 2 different kinds of birds... The XL here is like a M there... And I  had a random 2 tblsp of lemon juice left from squeezing so i just added that in. 
I also cut down on the sugar to 1/2 cup and sieved out the lemon rind after stirring it around for a bit because my zest was in too large bits and spoiled the mouth-feel. Maybe its time to buy a microplane zester...


What I really loved, was the intense yellow and slight translucency of the curd. It was really easy to make and turned out fantastic. I might try adding one small egg to the mix next time to see what comes out. 

But all in all, it was a very satisfactory batch of curd, it topped two batches of dough, and brought smiles to the faces of loads of people. In fact... I still have a little tart tin, with a little bit of that dough, in the freezer, and just a little bit of lemon curd left.. hmmmmmmm..... :)