MAKING:

1. So to start, place in some regular flour into a food processor, add to that the zest of 1 lemon and some cold butter. Pulse it several times until the mix forms crumbs, you can also do this by hand by pinching the butter and flour together, just remember to work quickly because you want the butter to stay as cold as possible.

2. Next add in the caster sugar or superfine sugar, egg yolks and a pinch of salt. Again pulse it until it forms a soft dough.

3. Lay out cling film onto the bench, place the dough in the centre and wrap it tightly. Now it needs to go back into the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. This will give us that buttery pastry that were after.

4. Take out of the fridge and unwrap it, dust the surface with flour and roll out to roughly 2mm thick.

5. Rub butter into the tart tin which helps develop a nice crust but also stops it from sticking. Then roll over your pastry and let gravity do the work, gently tuck in the sides and edges. Don’t worry about the over hang, the pastry will shrink and we can cut the edges off when its finished cooking.

6. Prink the base with a fork, this stops and steam from rising and then place down some baking paper, along with pie weights. If you don’t hav pie weights, rice or dried beans will do fine. So now were going to blind bake it in a preheated oven at 180C or 350f for 8-10 minutes or until the tart shell has just started to turn golden brown. Now leave it to cool.

7. While its cooling, lets get started on the egg custard. Over a medium heat, pour in some heavy cream and bring to the boil. While the cream is coming to the boil in a separate boil place in the separated egg yolks. Add the caster sugar and whisk until pale and creamy.

8. Now add a small amount of the boiled cream into the yolks and whisk quickly. This tempers the yolks with the cream and will stop the eggs from scrambling which is what will happen if you place the cream in all at once. So slowly incorate the cream, then strain it though a sieve into a jug, straining it is like having an insurance policy it just catches any lumpy egg that might have scrambled, which keeps our custard silky smooth.

9. Now pour into the tart shell, then grate over some fresh nutmeg. Freshly grated nutmeg is so much more flavourful but if you can get your hands on them the pre-grated nutmeg out of a jar is fine. Don’t be stingy on the nutmeg either, it may look like a lot but its not really. Also egg wash the sides of the pastry, this will help it get a deeper colour and flavour while protecting the sides from burning.

10. Place the tart back into the oven, this time at a lower preheated temperature, 130c or 265f for 50 minutes or until the custard is set but should still have a slight wobble to it.

11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool then keep in the fridge for an hour to firm up again before cutting into it. When you slice into it, its buttery smooth with the sexiest of wobbles. It is so elegant in its simplicity yet packed full of flavour that will satisfy any dessert lover.

SERVING:

12. Serve and Enjoy!