French Lemon Cream Tart. Mousse au Citron. No Bake. Vegetarian. Egg Free. Dreamy, Creamy, Fluffy, Lemon Mousse. Absolutely Divine! Low sugar and Calories! Includes 2 pastry crusts, 1 biscuit & 1 baked.

Total Weight: 1,165 g Total Calories: 1,775

Totally Delish! I Promise!  Best eaten at room temperature  

The recipe includes an instant no-bake biscuit crust. If you desire a crispier pastry, you may bake it using the same method as my homemade pastry. See below – Recipe 2.

This recipe may stand at room temperature as the cream has been stabilized by the jelly and will not weep.

To Turn this into an orange cream tart, just replace the lemon jelly with an orange one.

To create a granadilla tart, replace some of your freshly squeezed juice with granadilla pulp by grams or in milliliters.

The filling is actually a lovely pale baby lemon yellow. The camera, somehow, wasn’t picking it up.

Notes:

I used 4 navel oranges with the juice of 3 small lemons added to taste to make up 450 g of freshly squeezed juice. The lemon adds to the tartness but does not make it overly tart. It must just add a mild tartness and give flavor and lift to the orange juice but with a distinctive lemon flavor. The orange juice balances it all out. I used 3 very small lemons but you might need two, so add according to your own taste. If you don’t have a scale, measure your filling ingredients in milliliters. 

Chefs Tip: As soon as your pastry crust comes out of the oven – very quickly before it cools down, with a teaspoon, gently press down on the pastry to prevent puffiness. It must be done quickly or you will damage your pastry, as it begins cooling down very fast once it comes from the oven. If you use this trick you will never need to bake your pastry blind.  I just used ordinary table sugar in both my filling and pastry. If you want to make Castor sugar just run ordinary table sugar through your food processor with a metal blade on, or you may use a coffee grinder.

Pastry Crust – Recipe 1: Instant Biscuit Pastry Crust – Total Weight: 174 g Total Calories: 855

Notes: If your biscuits are already sweet, omit the sugar when making your biscuit crust. You may use any plain, sweet tea biscuits for this one.
Ingredients:

100 g biscuits (Marie or Tennis biscuits in South Africa)

62.5 g butter, melted (may use good-tasting margarine to economize)

pinch salt to taste

11 g sugar (only if using Marie biscuits) Do NOT add sugar with Tennis biscuits

Method: 

Dissolve butter until very hot in the microwave. Break up biscuits by adding to a food processor together with sugar only if using South African Marie biscuits or place in bag and crush with feet or rolling-pin until fine crumbs. Stir biscuit crumbs into hot melted butter. Empty into a pie plate and press out with an inverted drinking flat-bottomed glass. Bake 180 C until golden. Set aside to cool. – Note: Some people don’t bake this crust but it is preferable as it gives you a fresher tasting crispier texture but is entirely up to you.

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Homemade Shortcrust Pastry: Recipe 2: Total weight: 102 g – Total Calories: 527

This gives a delicious thin pastry crust, without wastage. I really love this crust. I have been using it all my life and it just cannot be bettered! 

Ingredients:

45 g (3 Tablespoons / 45 ml) butter – May use hard margarine or ½ and ½

1 Tablespoon castor sugar

45 g (90 ml) Cake Flour – or use your set of measuring spoons

Pinch salt or to taste

1.25 ml vanilla extract (essence) or to taste

Method:

Place your 23 cm diameter tart foil or baking dish on the scale and weigh into it your flour, castor sugar, and salt. Rub in butter with fingertips until it forms crumbs. Knead to form a ball and press into foil tart baking dish. Use flour dusted pastry press – if you don’t have one, use your fingers to press out pastry into a tart dish.

Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 8 minutes if you are going to bake your milk tart or prefer a softer pastry. If you are not going to bake your milk tart and prefer a crispier pastry for 10 – 12 minutes – Remove it from the oven. Set aside to cool.

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Lemon Cream Filling:

Yep, this has plenty of freshly squeezed orange juice, but you won’t even know it’s there. It just adds to the lovely flavor boost! 

I used 4 navel oranges with the juice of 3 very small lemons, and I still had some juice left over which I drank. 

Ingredients:

450 g freshly squeezed orange and lemon Juice (bulk consisting of orange juice)

80 g packet of lemon-flavored jelly

570 g – or – (564 ml) Cream, Chilled (You may chill your beaters too if you wish) 

62 g sugar

1.25 ml vanilla essence, to taste

Method:

Juice your oranges. Juice your lemons (just a little). Add only just enough to add a gentle tartness to your orange juice as it always adds a lift to the orange juice giving it just enough tartness. Be careful! Do NOT overdo the tartness or you will spoil your tart by making it too sour. Taste and go according to your own taste.

Once you have enough juice measured. Place juice in the microwave and cook for 4 minutes on high or until very hot.

Quickly add your lemon-flavored jelly and swirl it around in the bowl continuously until all the jelly crystals are dissolved. Add your sugar and swirl in.

Refrigerate until cooled and starting to thicken.

Give your fresh cream a good shake and add to your jelly fruit juice mixture.

Beat lemon cream with electric beaters until fluffy and then place in the coldest section (top back section) of the refrigerator to chill.

Once it begins to set, remove and beat again and continue in this way until you are satisfied it can no longer get any fluffier.

Pour into cooled pastry crusts and smooth the top.

Lightly dust the surface with some orange or lemon zest and refrigerate to the top (coldest) back section of the refrigerator, overnight to set.

 

Serve at room temperature.

And... Enjoy!