Queen of tarts: We baked Mary Berry, Melissa Clark and BBC Good Food lemon tarts, which turned out best?

A well-executed lemon tart is a thing of beauty: crisp, buttery pastry filled with a smooth, citrusy filling. I tested six versions here: Melissa Clark’s lemon curd tart, Yossi Arefi’s lemon cheesecake tart, Dorie Greenspan’s whole lemon tart, BBC Good Food’s lemon meringue tart, Nicola Lamb’s lemon custard tart and Mary Berry’s lemon posset tart. I used my trusty short crust recipe as a control, which you’ll find in the recipe below. Most of these fillings are quite liquid, so it’s important to line the tart shell really carefully, making sure there are no gaps through which the filling can escape.
Both Melissa Clark and BBC Good Food use lemon curd as filling. Curd is essentially a cooked mixture of eggs, sugar, butter and fruit – in this case, lemon zest and juice. Lemon curd is a great option for a lemon tart, as it sets quite firmly (although some people add gelatine for extra insurance) when cooled. It’s potentially the richest option of the fillings tested here, due to the high fat content provided by the butter and egg yolks.
Nicola Lamb’s baked lemon custard tart offers a slightly different texture: it is smooth and velvety, but not as rich. The cream is infused with lemon peel, before being whisked into sugar, eggs and lemon juice. This custard is poured into the tart shell and baked, to achieve a really lovely “just-set” texture.
Lemon posset is a really interesting dessert made from just three ingredients: cream, lemon and sugar. The lemon juice coagulates the cream, causing it to set in the fridge – without the need for other setting agents such as gelatine or eggs. You simply heat the cream, sugar and lemon zest, before stirring in the lemon juice, pouring the mixture into the tart shell and allowing it to set in the fridge. It has a lovely, clean, lemony flavour (due to the shortlist of ingredients) but is definitely on the creamier side.
I included Yossi Arefi’s lemon cheesecake tart as it’s perhaps less daunting than other tarts that have to be baked with precision: it’s essentially a cheesecake mixture (cream cheese, sugar, egg, lemon zest and juice) baked into the tart shell. Although I can get behind the simplicity of this recipe, it didn’t have enough of a distinct lemony flavour for me.
Dorie Greenspan’s innovative whole lemon tart was perhaps my favourite of the bunch. You cut the lemons into thin slices and toss them in sugar, before blending them in a food processor until smooth. This is then blended with eggs, cornflour and melted butter, to form an enriched custard of sorts. This batter is poured into the tart shell and baked, resulting in a velvety filling that packs a strong lemony punch.
There are a few options for taking your lemon tart up a notch: BBC Good Food’s lemon meringue tart, for example, adds another dimension texturally. I opted for a brûléed top on my lemon tart, sprinkling the top of the baked tart with sugar, before using a blowtorch to caramelise it for a crisp, slightly burned top that contrasts perfectly with the lemony filling.
It’s really important to line your tart shell as perfectly as possible, to avoid leakage: don’t forget to egg wash it for the second part of the blind bake, and I recommend keeping a little ball of uncooked pastry that you can use to patch up any cracks (spackle style). When baking the filling, check regularly and take care not to overbake it, as it can become rubbery once it cools and sets.
Melissa Clark
Yossi Arefi
Dorie Greenspan
BBC Good Food
Nicola Lamb: Kitchen Projects Substack
Mary Berry