These Baked Lemon Curd Tarts are a simple yet irresistible treat. Crisp shortcrust pastry and tangy lemon curd work in perfect harmony to make these classic little tarts. With just two ingredients and a short cook time, they’re ideal for baking with kids or making the most of leftover ingredients.
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Like my simple jam tarts, these little lemon tarts are something that I grew up making. In fact the recipe is basically identical except the jam is swapped for lemon curd here. I won’t apologise for this, the joy in the recipe is it simplicity. Messing around with it just to be slightly more different to another recipe would be silly.
This recipe can easily be made with two store bought ingredients – lemon curd from a jar, and ready made or ready rolled shortcrust pastry. Or, you can make both items from scratch and obviously to do that, you will need more overall ingredients.
Please don’t confuse this recipe for a classic tarte au citron. This is made with a lemon, cream and egg custard like filling which bakes from raw in the pastry case. The texture is quite different. It is also different from my series of unbaked fruit curd tarts which uses straight up curd served in a pre-baked pastry case.
Don’t ask why but for some reason I’ve never shared a recipe for lemon curd. I do however have a whole host of non-citrus fruit curd recipes for you to try. They’ll all work just perfectly as baked curd tarts using this recipe.
FRUIT CURD RECIPES – HINTS, TIPS & FAQS
All the recipes and all the extra information you could possible need to help you make the most out of my collection of fruit curd recipes.
I do however have a perfect and easy to make shortcrust pastry recipe. Unlike more involved laminated pastries, this one is ridiculously easy to make from scratch. Especially if you have a food processor. Make a couple of batches and freeze some for another time.
All Butter Shortcrust Pastry Recipe
How to Serve Lemon Curd Tarts
There is no real need to serve lemon curd tarts in any specific way. I do like them ever so slightly warmed in the microwave for a couple of seconds. Any longer and they become like molten lava so do be careful. But if you like, you can just eat them just as they are!
They are rather on the small side to make a dessert on their own. But throw a couple of warm lemon tarts into a bowl and cover with thick custard and you can’t go wrong.
Lemon tarts are ideal served as part of the traditional afternoon tea along with finger sandwiches, savouries like mini sausage rolls and other sweet treats like chocolate fairy cakes and traditional big fluffy scones.
They’re also great for throwing into lunch boxes, adding to a picnic spread, and of course they’re perfect for children’s birthday party tea.
Baked Lemon Tarts Ingredients
Shortcrust Pastry
You can make the shortcrust pastry from scratch using my easy all butter recipe. You can also buy it ready made in a block or ready-rolled. The latter is of course the absolute easiest convenience option. But don’t overlook the idea of making your own a shortcrust pastry. It’s incredibly quick and simple to make.
Lemon tarts are often something that I make with leftover pastry from other recipes. So don’t feel like you need to make pastry specially. Just use what you have on hand.
Shortcrust pastry is very forgiving to use, just make sure to use a little flour as needed to help you roll it out nice and thin. Unlike puff pastry, you can re-roll is as many times as you need without having to worry about preserving the layering.
Lemon Curd
Lemon curd is a spread made from lemon juice, sometimes the zest, butter, sugar and eggs. It’s all cooked together to make a thick custard-like spread which thickens more as it cools. You would generally serve it at room temperature spread on things like crumpets, pancakes, or simply on toast.
You can use homemade or store bought lemon curd for this recipe. If anything it’s an ideal way to use up a cheaper, not so great quality curd. It puffs up and becomes a little translucent as it bakes and melds with the pastry.
You will probably need less curd than you first expect. Even though these tarts are quite small, the amount of curd that you put in each pastry round probably won’t look like it’s going to be enough. But trust me, it is. If you overfill the pastry case you will end up with an explosion of curd across your baking tray and oven.
Be Flexible
This recipe is really a very basic framework that you can endlessly adapt. Choose your pastry, choose your filling. Just use my guidance in terms of quantities, sizes, techniques and cooking times.
You can use any kind of pastry you like. Although it is worth noting that if you use puff pastry, you might find it easier to use a deeper tin to bake them. This is so the curd doesn’t go anywhere as it puffs up during baking. Use my puff pastry mince pies recipe as a guide.
Suet pastry work surprisingly well – think jam roly-poly vibes. I don’t generally use a sweet pastry when making lemon curd tarts as the curd is really sweet enough. But if that is what you have on hand, of course you can use it.
Puff Pastry Recipe
American Pie Pastry Recipe (Buttery Rough Puff)
Traditional Suet Pastry Recipe
As well as being able to use any curd that you like, you can also use other preserves to make very similar tarts.
Marmalade, ginger jam and any of my smooth jams are all good choices. Even savoury preserves like chutney work wonderfully. Mixing a little dried mustard powder and some finely grated cheese into homemade shortcrust pastry would make those savoury tarts even more amazing.
Vegetarian or Vegan Lemon Curd Tarts
Unless you are using some kind of curd which contains an animal gelatine, this recipe is going to be naturally vegetarian. Such curds are going to be rare but if you are buying from the shop, it might be worth checking the label just in case.
Vegan lemon curd tarts are much harder to make. Most standard store-bought pastry here in the UK is naturally vegan. But lemon curd is inherently a product made with both dairy butter and eggs. You can easily sub the butter for a plant based option. But the eggs are a much harder swap. I would suggest looking for a vegan specific curd recipe. Or looking for a vegan store bought option. This may be called lemon spread rather than lemon curd.
Make Allergy Friendly Lemon Curd Tarts
This recipe is free from nuts.
Gluten Free: Use a gluten-free pastry. You can either home make the pastry using a gluten-free flour blend. Or gluten-free pastry is fairly easy to find in the shops. If you can’t find any in the chiller section, check the freezers. Ready rolled is harder to come by than the block forms. But it isn’t difficult to roll out so don’t let that put you off.
Dairy Free: As I’ve mentioned when discussing vegan options, it should be fairly easy to make a dairy free lemon curd using a plant based butter. You will also need to make sure that your pastry is not made using butter.
Egg Free: This is a sticky wicket as eggs are an essential ingredient in lemon curd. I would again suggest looking for a curd or spread that is specifically vegan.
Please note that this recipe may contain other allergens not referred to above and any variations suggested have not been tested unless otherwise stated. For more information regarding any dietary information provided on this website, please refer to my Nutritional Disclaimer.
Equipment Notes for Baked Lemon Curd Tarts
Annoyingly, the type of baking tin that I used for these lemon tarts and my jam tarts was my biggest headache. Historically there are two main types of tins used for baking individual tarts and cakes – muffin tins which are much larger and bun tins which have shallower holes.
Bun tins are much harder to find than they once were. I did buy a shallow muffin tin tray which worked out perfectly for these tarts. The first shallow tray that I tried was actually too shallow and the tarts came out more like biscuits with the curd puffing up and going everywhere.
if you don’t have a shallow muffin tin you can use a regular muffin tin but still using a smallish amount of pastry and a little lemon curd. If you look at my shortcrust pastry mince pies recipe you will see that I use this method here.
Other than the baking tray, you don’t need anything else much in the way of specialist equipment. You can use a roll of cling film to roll out the pastry if you don’t have a rolling pin. You can use a thin edged glass to cut out the pastry rounds if you don’t have cookie cutters. And you simply need a couple of teaspoons to dollop the curd into the pastry cases.
A comprehensive list of the equipment used to make this recipe is included in the main recipe card below. Click on any item to see an example. There are no hard and fast rules so many items can be sensibly substituted to achieve the same results.
Get Ahead
Lemon curd tarts will keep perfectly well for around a week. You might find that over the time they do become a little softer. But they still delicious to eat. Because of this you can make them a good couple of days in advance of when you’re planning to serve.
if you are making your own shortcrust pastry and/or lemon curd, you can make both of these a good few days in advance. Store in the fridge and then make the tarts as you need them.
Once made and in the tin the tarts will happily sit in the fridge for a day until they’re baked. Make sure to cover them fully and tightly with cling film to prevent the pastry drying out.
Simple Lemon Tart Tips
Please do be careful when taking the tart out of the oven. Lemon curd contains a good amount of sugar which will become molten and extremely hot when cooked. Touch it straight away and you will end up with a burn. But don’t worry, these tarts are very small and they cool down very quickly.
You will get the nicest tart if you aim to roll the pastry nice and thin. This way you get the perfect ratio of lemon curd to pastry in every bite.
As I’ve already mentioned, It will look like I’ve told you to add too little lemon curd to the pastry. But please trust the process. It will spread out and puff up as it bakes.
Don’t forget to let me know in the comments if you try making this recipe – I want to know what you think and if you made any substitutions, how did it turn out?
Still Have Questions?
Simple! Just contact me and I will do my best to help as quickly as I am able. Head over to my Contact Me page, any of my social media channels or post a comment at the bottom of this page and I’ll see what I can do.
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More Tart Recipes
The Recipe
Baked Lemon Curd Tarts with Shortcrust Pastry
Equipment
- 12 hole Bun Tin/Shallow Muffin Tin
- Spoon
Ingredients
- 250 g Shortcrust Pastry
- 225 g Lemon Curd
- Flour - as needed for rolling the pastry
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200c | 390f or equivalent.
- Roll out around 250g Shortcrust Pastry until it is quite thin. After each roll, turn the pastry round and/or over. This will make it easier to roll evenly and prevent sticking. You may need to use a little flour if the pastry sticks to the surface at all.
- Use a cookie cutter that is just a little larger than the holes in your bun or muffin tin. Cut as many rounds out as you can from the pastry. I like to use the fluted side of the cookie cutter but you can use the straight if you prefer.
- Carefully move the rounds into the bun tin. Gently press the pastry into the holes trying not to create bit folds on the sides.
- Re-roll the leftover pastry and cut more rounds until you have enough to fill the tray.
- Put around 200g Lemon Curd into a bowl and give it a quick stir – I find this makes it easier to split between the tarts.
- Spoon just around 1 tsp Curd into each tart. Use a second spoon to push the curd off the first spoon. I didn't have enough hands to photograph this!
- Note – you need much less curd than you think – it will puff up and bubble as the tarts cook. It is surprising but please believe me!
- Bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.
- Allow the tarts to sit for a minute before carefully moving them to a cooling rack. Be careful not to touch the curd as it will be extremely hot and can burn badly.
Jen says
These were a lovely easy bake and I really enjoyed the tangy flavour from the lemon curd.
Hazel says
I’d never thought of using lemon curd in little tarts but it was so delicious I’ll definitely make them again.