It’s good to be back baking. I took a long break after elbow surgery in December. Now I’m recovered from surgery, working from home and ready to be baking from Dorie’s cookbooks again.

Along comes Easter and even though we can’t have a large celebration, dessert must be made! This tart, one of the selections for this month’s baking from Baking Chez Moi for Tuesdays with Dorie, is a perfect choice when you have limited ingredients on hand. If you have the basic baking essentials plus apples and lemons, you’re good to go.

The crust of this tart is a sweet tart dough, one of Dorie’s basic recipes. I’ve had trouble with this one in the past: it cracked when I tried to put it in the tart pan after the one hour rest in the freezer. This time, I was patient and made sure to let the dough soften longer after it came out of the freezer. The recipe suggests the dough may be soft enough after ten minutes. Twenty minutes was better for my dough. There was still some minimal cracking, but it was easy to patch. Also, sweet dough burns easily. I baked at 375 degrees instead of 400 and took it out after 20 minutes.

A golden tart crust ready to be filled.

The filling consists of sugar infused with lemon. You rub grated lemon zest into the sugar with your fingertips. Eggs go in, then lemon juice. Grate the apples either by hand or in a food processor (my choice.) Add those in, add melted butter, pour it in the crust and the tart’s ready for the oven. Forty minutes later and you have a light, elegant and delicious end to your meal. Leftovers go in the fridge. The tart is great the next day cold and is even more lemony.

Martine’s Lemon Apple Tart