lemon tartlets

Sweet and tangy mini lemon tarts with buttery shortbread crusts and simple lemon curd filling are delicious and adorable spring and summer desserts!

Mini Lemon Tarts with Shortbread Crust

unsalted butter

sugar

white whole wheat (or all purpose) flour

tsp fine sea salt (omit

tsp vanilla extract

lemon curd (recipe below)

lemon zest

lemon juice

fine sea salt (omit

eggs egg

unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cubed

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in vanilla. Add flour, and salt and mix well. Refrigerate dough for 30 min.

Preheat oven to 300° F. Remove dough from refrigerator and press into mini tart pans. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly golden.

Remove from oven and let cool before removing tarts from pans.

Fill each cooled tart crust with lemon curd. Top with berries or whipped cream (optional).

Whisk eggs and egg yolks very well in a bowl. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat lemon zest, juice, sugar and salt over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat. Slowly scoop a about 1/2 cup into the eggs while whisking.

Pour egg mixture into the pan on the stove while whisking to prevent curdling. Turn heat back on to low and cook, whisking, until mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in the cubed butter until it’s completely mixed in.

At this point you can strain the zest out and any egg solids that may be in the curd if you’d like, by pushing it through a fine mesh stainer, or just leave it as is.

Cover lemon curd and chill until ready to use.

To make lemon curd

I was given fresh lemon curd so made the tarts. Absolute disaster. Thought I’d followed the instructions well but mix was wet and sticky. Bubbled. Way too sweet and a right old mess. Gave me a laugh and I have a photo 🤣🤪🤦‍♀️

In a small nonreactive saucepan, heat lemon zest, juice, sugar and salt over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat. Slowly scoop a about 1/2 cup into the eggs while whisking.

I love this lemon curd and I'm going to use it for everything. I already tried mixing it in to a buttercream for macarons and it's soooo good. 
A tip for those reading the comments. When she says mix well for the shortbread that means mix well! My first batch was crumbly and I thought it was just like that but I got distracted when making my second batch and left the mixer running and it's so much easier to work with!

Wow the lemon curd turned out divine! ✨and the tarts came out beautifully! Thank you for such a tasty yet simple recipe to follow 😊

So delicious!! Could I use the same curd recipe and just use different fruit? Raspberry in place of lemon for instance, or would the recipe change?

Looooooved this lemon curd filling! I especially like how I can make it ahead of time, keep it in the fridge and spoon it into my tart shells when I'm ready, and no baking required!
How long do you think I could keep these lemon tarts out of the fridge for, before they are consumed? I am hoping to use them for an event where they won't be refrigerated during the day.

I LOVE the curd filling... I made these for a wedding and I got so many compliments.  The crust though did not hold for me and fell apart after taking them out of this so I had to buy shells.

While these looked and sounded delicious, they were a disaster for me. I could not serve them. I had problems with both the tart crusts and the lemon curd.  I made them as well as mini cheesecakes for a baby shower. The cheesecakes were no problem so I know it was not my oven. The crusts were difficult to get out of the tartlet pans and crumbled. I baked them longer than 15 minutes because they did not seem to be getting done and still they tasted like they had not baked long enough. I also had a problem with the lemon curd. It did not thicken very much. It was the consistency of a thick cream soup. It did taste delicious though.

Great recipe. Everything went as planned just as you described.

I never had luck making lemon curd…until now! Worked beautifully! (Yes, tempering is key!) I made one big tart today, instead of mini tarts, just out of convenience. In this case, the crust needs to stay in the oven a little longer, and I baked it at 325 instead of 300 degrees. I also substituted  powdered sugar for regular sugar in the crust, just as I would use for making shortbread cookies. I love the ease of making the curd and crust the night before dinner and assembling right before serving! Thank you so much for this recipe!! Will add some variety to the dessert table this Thanksgiving, and add an appropriate injection of sunshine into our Southern California gathering.

I followed this recipe to a T and unfortunately the lemon curd came out tasting metallic. I checked online for possible causes and aparently the high acidity of the lemon may leach the metal from the saucepan when it's being whisked over low heat. Apparently this happens a lot with lemon curd recipes, so it's almost impossible to know how it'll turn out until the end. Perhaps it would be possible to whisk the mixture over a bain-marie, to thicken it without using any metal whatsoever, but I will leave that experiment for the future.

I had to come back and read through comments to try to figure out why mine was a disaster. The recipe is missing important info. I tried making small mini tarts - I used too much dough because there was no guidance about it. I was not told to prick the bottom with a fork or put pie weights in it so it rose and the cooking time was way off. Baked it for 30 mins at least. Regarding the curd - I am really disappointed. The recipe says 3 whole eggs + 4 egg yolks. That is a plus sign, right? As in - in addition to? My curd had 7 egg yolks and 3 egg whites. No wonder it is a runny mess! That’s completely wrong! This was only my second time making a lemon curd, the other was a vegan recipe, so I just followed your instructions not knowing any better. I hate that I wasted all that time and all those ingredients.

Similar to another commenter I had a metallic after taste in my lemon curd as well. My lemon mixture also didnt thicken and i followed the instructions exactly. Disappointing as this was going to be my Easter dessert to bring to a gathering and a waste of ingredients. Oh well.

https://mediavine-res.cloudinary.com/video/upload/t_original/v1611431243/x7v43ho14wa2yc76q9bc.mp4

Pretty lemon tartlets with the best lemon curd you've ever had! Definitely a crowd pleaser as an appetizer or dessert at your next party!

Lemon Tartlets with Lemon Curd

(166 grams) all purpose flour

(115 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed

salt

lemon juice,

eggs

unsalted butter,

heavy cream

vanilla extract

table salt

Berries

Pastry cutter

Mini muffin tin

Circle cookie cutter

Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles course breadcrumbs.

Stir in the sugar and salt, then add the egg and stir with a fork until just combined. Use your hands to work the mixture into a dough. It might seem too dry at first, but as you mix it it will start to come together.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/8-inch thick*.

Cut the pastry into rounds with a cookie cutter** and press into mini muffin tins. Freeze for 30 minutes prior to baking to prevent shrinking.

Bake at 350° Fahrenheit for 20 minutes or until golden. Set aside to cool.

Make the tartlets:

Heat lemon juice over medium heat until hot but not boiling.

Meanwhile, whisk eggs and yolk in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in the sugar. While whisking, slowly pour hot lemon juice into the eggs. Return to saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture registers 170° Fahrenheit and coats the back of a spoon.

Remove pan from heat and stir in butter. Once melted, stir in cream, vanilla, and salt. If the curd didn&#8217;t come together and thicken, simply return to heat and cook a bit longer, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

Curd can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week, just cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

Make the lemon curd:

Spoon the lemon curd into each tartlet shell.

Top each tartlet with a berry (optional) and serve.

Assemble the lemon tartlets:

This was delicious! The tartlet shells were beautiful and flaky but just sturdy enough, and the curd was the perfect tangy-meets-sweet softness. However, to my dismay, I barely had enough curd to fill my shells! My shells were about half the size yours were, and I had 24 of them, but after filling 8 I was already nearing the end of my batch. I have checked and re-checked the recipe and cannot for the life of me figure out what happened. I had a bonne-maman jam jar filled to about 2/3 with the stuff. Is that right? Or did I do something wrong?

Hi Nathalie - How frustrating! My tart shells were very shallow (about 1/2 inch high x 1.25 inch in diameter) so it only took a tiny bit of lemon curd to fill them. The apprx 1 cup the recipe yields. was enough for my use. I'm sorry yours ended up a bit short.

Thanks so much for your quick and kind reply. Comparing my photos to yours, I guess the diameter of my tartlets was a bit larger than yours (if you're curious you can check the photos on instagram @bakingbank). I ended up spreading a little bit of curd over all the shells and pushing the raspberry in quite far, which ended up working all right. Next time i'll probably make 1.5x the recipe, but otherwise this recipe goes into my book as is! Thanks again!

No problem! I'm really glad you love the recipe. You've totally inspired me to make them again soon! Our lemon tree is starting to produce so it's the perfect time. Also I almost always double the lemon curd recipe when I make it because it's sooooo good!

You want to eat them just by looking at them in the photos!

Definitely! They are stunning aren't they?

Am I missing something? My dough was so dry and crumbly it wouldn’t come together at all. I added water to it and that definitely helped... but I’m wondering was adding water a step so obvious you didn’t include it in the instructions? 

At any rate my tartlets turned out delicious afterwards, so thank you for the simple and easy to follow recipe! I will be making this in the future for sure :)

Hi Michelle - I'm glad you overall enjoyed the tartlets but I'm sorry you ran into trouble. I wonder if you didn't mix the dough long enough? It starts out sort of crumbly but if you stick with it it comes together and shouldn't need water. Hope that helps!

Hi Anaya - I have doubled the recipe before easily and I'm sure tripling it would be fine. I have only done it with Meyer lemons because we have a tree that's full of them but I think you could get away with traditional ones.

I use Meyer lemons because we have a tree. Others should be fine, we just have the Meyers available and they are a bit sweeter than other lemons!

Haha nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! Add it after they bake.

I hope they turned out! I never have to add water but I'm sure a little wouldn't affect the flavor too much.

It's so good right!? I think you could put warm curd into the shells but I would let the shells cool at least for 20-30 minutes before filling!

Hooray that's great news! Glad you loved them!

If you have time to assemble them the day of (which should only take a few minutes), make the shells and keep them in an airtight container at room temperature. You can make the lemon curd and keep it in the fridge for a few days.

If you don't have time the fridge for the assembled tarts works too. I wouldn't do more than overnight because I think they will start to get soggy.

I frequently make the dough in advance and freeze it, but I've never frozen the shells, sorry!

The lemon curd and the shells taste amazing! I love them! 
But my shells got puffy and weird when baking, so they are more blobs than shells. 
Not sure what happened. But I’m going to try again.  Maybe I’ll freeze them for an hour before baking.

Hi Emily - I'm sorry that you had that experience! I bet if you put a dab of lemon curd on them they will still taste delicious!

Definitely a little tart - perfectly tart in my opinion!

Yay! I'm glad you loved them! That curd is sooo tasty!!!

Fantastic Lemon Curd AND SOOOOOO easy! I only made the curd recipe as I already had shortbread tartlets onhand. This is a keeper and next time (oh yes, there will be a next time!) I will make the shortbread tartlets recipe as well. There aren't any Meyers Lemons offered where I live so I used the standard bulk lemons you get at the grocery store...in my opinion, the extra tartness is a bonus! Thank you Kellie for sharing...

Hooray! I'm so glad you loved it. I can eat that lemon curd by the spoonful!

I'm so glad it worked out! I also never have heavy cream on hand so it's good to have an alternate option.

Wow that's great! What did you end up doing for ingredients?

Sorry Julia I don't understand the question. Can you clarify?

Yum yum yum. The curd from this recipe is delish! A great combination of sweet, tart and creamy. I used Meyer Lemons and it came out great!

Hi Joce - I love the lemon curd the way it is so I haven't experiemented with levels of sweetness, sorry.

I brought those tarts at a family BBQ yesterday, and my aunt (the hostess) left with the whole plate to hide it in a room so they would not share with all the guests :) 

Easy to make, and delicious.

This.  Was.  Delicious.  I’m nearly 50 and had never in my life made a cure of any kind.  I was mildly terrified, but the recipe was so detailed and easy to follow!  I made a double batch, and I cheated on the tart cups and bought mini graham cracker crusts instead, topped them with blueberries and voila!  I’m almost confident enough to go on Kids Baking Championship:) Thanks so much for the recipe and the “go for it” vibe of your post!

Wow Janelle - Thank you so much for taking the time to write this thoughtful comment and for your kind words! I'm so glad you loved it!

I made the shells with king Arthur gluten free 1:1 flour. Absolutely amazing!  I had already bought trader Joe's lemon curd and then found this recipe, so I haven't tried the curd yet. Everyone loved them. The crust to beyond delicious!

Hooray! I'm so glad you loved them! I hope you get the chance to try the curd it's so lovely! :)

You could definitely try it. The only thing I can think of is that the shell might break under the weight of the curd. They will also be sort of messy to eat so you'd need to serve them on a plate with a fork. Good luck!

That last photo could be framed art! Its gorgeous!

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Lemon Tartlets with Lemon Curd

Top 3 lemon tartlets recipes from across the web

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Lemon Tartlets with Lemon Curd

The most viewed lemon tartlets recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine