Supper for six - Part 2: Tarte au citron and culinary disaster no. 1

So, now for my first culinary disaster post. I decided to make a Tarte au Citron recipe by Mary Berry (whose books I love) to eat after the chilli. So, I made the pastry, blind baked it, made the filling (including NINE eggs!) - so far, so good. Then I mixed the filling together. I realised straight away that the recipe asks you to make WAY too much filling. But I thought, 'OK, I'll save the rest, make another pastry case when this one's done, then freeze it'. No problem. Actually, I never got the chance, because after I'd poured the filling into the pastry case, I was confronted by the problem of how to get a tart very full of very runny filling into the oven without spilling it. I gingerly lifted the tart and within about two seconds the whole filling had gone onto the floor. Disaster. Luckily the pastry case was intact and I still had half the filling left. So I was saved. And it tasted good. But a tip for anyone making this recipe: put the empty pastry case on the oven shelf, then use a jug to pour the filling inside. Don't try to transport a full pastry case from kitchen counter to oven. It'll never work.

Tarte au citron - serves 8-10. I originally used Mary Berry's lemon tart recipe, but found that the quantities were all over the place. This is my own version, with amended quantities. Sorry Mary.

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 125g butter, straight from the fridge
• 280g caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 170ml double cream
• Zest and juice of 3-4 lemons

1. Make the pastry. Put the plain flour in a bowl. Cube the butter and add it to the flour. Rub it into the pastry with your fingertips until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. This will take a little while. Make sure there are no lumps of butter remaining.
2. Stir in 60g of the caster sugar.
3. Whisk 1 egg in a small bowl, then add to the pastry and bind it all together.
4. Wrap it in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough. Flour your work surface, flour your rolling pin, and roll it out until it's about 0.5 cm thick (or thinner, if you dare). Use this to line a 28cm fluted-edge loose-bottom flan tin. Mine's by John Lewis and it's ace.
6. Bake the pastry case blind. That means, prick the pastry case all over the base with a fork, line it with foil, then tip in baking beans or rice, ensuring that they cover the whole area, especially the edges as you don't want the case to shrink. Then bake it in the oven, preheated to 200 degrees (a little less if it's fan assisted, maybe 190 degrees) for 10 minutes. Then, remove the foil and beans and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 180/170 degrees.
7. Beat the remaining 5 eggs in a large bowl. Add the double cream, the lemon zest and juice, and the remaining 220g caster sugar. Stir until very smooth.
8. Put the flan dish on the oven shelf. Then pour the filling into the pastry case.
9. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the lemon filling is wobbly but not liquid. If the pastry begins to brown, cover loosely with foil, making sure the foil does not touch the filling.
10. Remove from the oven. Leave to cool, then dust with icing sugar (I use a tea strainer to do this).
11. Serve warm or at room temperature, with cream or creme fraiche if you like.