Homemade Lemon Tart Recipe
Published April 19, 2023. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Sink your teeth into this light and refreshing Lemon Tart Recipe with mascarpone and fresh berries in a simple pie crust. The creamy flavors in this lemon tart make for the perfect dessert to serve up during the spring and summer.
Is there anything better than a sweet treat after a deliciously savory meal? If you need to fulfill your sweet tooth cravings, try my Blackberry Cobbler or Ricotta Olive Oil Cake.
Lemon Tart
Lemon tart is a simple dessert consisting of lemon curd that is added to a pre-baked pie crust and chilled until solidified. This has bright lemon flavors with a creamy smooth finish from the mascarpone and cream cheese. Tarts have been around for centuries since their inception in the late 1800s in France. They can have an assortment of fillings and can be small one-bite-size treats or like a pie in size.
While tarts are commonly thin, I enjoy a thicker tart in a two-inch-deep tart pan for my recipe. You can however cut the filling recipe in half and serve it in a regular 1” deep tart pan if you prefer a more classical-sized tart.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Pie Crust – You will need a pie crust for this recipe.
- Eggs – Large eggs and egg yolks are needed. These can be cold or room temperature.
- Lemon – You will need the zest and juice of lemons.
- Sugar – Granulated sugar and powdered sugar are needed for the filling.
- Butter – I always use unsalted butter in my cooking and baking so that I control the salt content.
- Cheese – I use a combination of Mascarpone and cream cheese in this lemon tart.
How to Make a Lemon Tart from Scratch
In a food processor add in the pie crust ingredients plus ½ cup of powdered sugar and pulse until a dough has formed. Transfer the dough to a clean surface and roll it out until it is about 1/8” thick.
Form it into a 2” inch deep 8” round tart pan. Trim off any excess.
Bake in the oven at 400° for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned and cooked. Let it cool.
In a large metal bowl over a medium size pot of boiling water, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, ¼ cup of sugar, zest of ½ lemon, and juice of 1 lemon until it becomes very thick, like a custard, which is about 2 to 4 minutes. Be sure to whisk constantly. Remove the bowl and whisk in the butter until it has melted. Cool the mixture in the refrigerator until completely cooled.
In a standing mixture with the whip attachment on high speed, mix the mascarpone and cream cheese until light and fluffy, which takes about 5 to 7 minutes, and then add in the remaining lemon zest, lemon juice, and powdered sugar. Mix until combined, and then fold in the chilled lemon curd.
Pour the mixture into the cooked pie shell and cool overnight in the refrigerator or until it firms up.
Garnish with berries and serve!
Make-Ahead and Storage
Make-Ahead: You can make this up to 1 day ahead of time.
How to Store: Cover the Lemon Tart and keep it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. You can freeze this covered for up to 3 months. Thaw it in the refrigerator for 1 day before slicing and serving.
Chef Notes + Tips
- Add 1/4 cup of sugar to the curd if you like sweeter tarts.
Chef Notes + Tips
More Dessert Recipes
Homemade Lemon Tart Recipe
Ingredients
For the Crust:
- 1 pie dough crust recipe
- ½ cup powdered sugar
For the Filling:
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- ¼ cup of sugar
- zest of 1 lemon
- juice of 2 lemons, about 6 tablespoons
- 1 stick unsalted ice-cold butter, cut up
- 16 ounces mascarpone cheese
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- assorted fresh berries
Instructions
- In a food processor, add in the pie crust ingredients plus ½ cup of powdered sugar and pulse until a dough has formed. Slowly drizzle in the water while pulsing until it becomes a meal-like texture.
- Transfer the dough to a clean surface and roll it out until it is about 1/8” thick. Form it into a 2” inch deep 8” round tart pan. Trim off any excess.
- Bake in the oven at 400° for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned and cooked. Let it cool.
- In a large metal bowl over a medium size pot of boiling water, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, ¼ cup of sugar, zest of ½ lemon, and juice of 1 lemon until it becomes very thick, like a custard, which is about 2 to 4 minutes. Be sure to whisk constantly. Remove the bowl and whisk in the butter until it has melted. Cool the mixture in the refrigerator until completely cooled.
- In a standing mixture with the whip attachment on high speed, mix the mascarpone and cream cheese until light and fluffy, which takes about 5 to 7 minutes, and then add in the remaining lemon zest, lemon juice, and powdered sugar. Mix until combined, and then fold in the chilled lemon curd.
- Pour the mixture into the cooked pie shell and cool overnight in the refrigerator or until it firms up. Garnish with berries and serve!
Gonna make this to take for a dinner at friend’s. (I told her we’d all be guinea pigs as I’ve not made it before!) Should I use pie weights? Thanks, Billy.
You can!
Chef Billy,
Do you make your own mascarpone? If so, would you please share your recipe?
I do not.
This looks and sounds heavenly! I love lemon and look forward to trying this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure!
This dessert is absolutely amazing! It is so fancy that I served it at an anniversary party. Top notch quality!
Thank you for giving it a try!
If I use store bought lemon curd how much would I add?
Without testing it, I’m not 100% sure. My apologies.
I live in a country where I can’t get mascarpone cheese, but cream cheese is available. What can I substitute it with?
Thanks
cream cheese will work
ChefBilly delicious 😋 😁
What are the ingredients for the pie dough or should I just use my own and add the powered sugar?
click on it to get that recipe 🙂
Its heavenly. Great taste.
so good!!
Chef Parisi! Another great dessert! It’s nice to build a repotoire of new and interesting desserts to serve to visiting friends and family! We tested the “pilot” tonight and the bacon fat in the crust made everyone say “wow! That crust is so good!” The lemon flavor was gentle and delicious! Thank you!
so good!!
I made this last weekend and it was a big hit.
thanks for giving it a shot!!
Sure looks delicious! Chef Parisi, so far all your recipes have been gifts to the taste buds of my wife Carol and Me. She is the maestro of our kitchen and never fails to convince me why “I Come When She Calls”, especially when it is one of your recipes
Thank you, thank you for this delicious recipe! With my congestive heart failure I will always be on a low sodium diet, and this lemon tart is perfect in every way……..it tastes devine and is so low in sodium I can have more than one slice!
Awesome!
How do you get the tart shell out of the tart pan without breaking it??
Why take it out of the pan?
Made this today and it’s beautiful! I used Myer lemons from my tree and eggs from my chickens. I will be making this again. Thanks so much.
Looks delicious, chef. As I’m a diabetic, I’m in the process of converting your delicious recipes using almond flour for crusts and stevia or monk fruit for cane sugar. I am losing weight also (65 lbs) and was missing some sweet treats!
Amazing!