Lemon Ricotta Tart

G and I made this together on Valentines Day. I know, I know, it’s not a very wintry dessert but I had a ton of lemons on hand and a defrosted homemade pie crust in the fridge so we knew we wanted to use both of those things in our special dessert that night. We looked in the cookbooks we have for some ideas and came across something that sounded great in Suzanne Goin’s book, ‘Sunday Suppers at Lucques’. (I’m sure there are plenty of other fabulous lemon pie/tart recipes out there but since we both used to work for her and her husband, we’re a little bit partial to anything of Suzanne’s). Her recipe was for ‘tarte au fromage with lemon cream and blueberry compote’ and claimed to be ‘not too sweet’, which is right up my alley. So this recipe is adapted from her idea, based off of what we had on hand…hope you like it. It was delicious.
-1 pie crust, rolled out and pressed into a tart shell, then sprinkled lightly with sugar and baked for about 20mins at 350 until it just begins to brown. Allow to cool completely. Meanwhile…
-Whisk together 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 15 oz. container of ricotta cheese, splash of vanilla extract, good pinch of salt, and the zest of one lemon.
-Pour this mixture into cooled pie shell and bake at 325 for 30-40 mins until just set.
*We served ours with both a Lemon Whipped Cream and Strawberry Compote…
For the Lemon Whipped Cream–
-slightly sweeten about 1/2 cup of whipped cream with a little powdered sugar (to taste) and fold in the zest and juice of one lemon.
And for the Strawberry Compote–
-chop 2 cups of fresh strawberries and place in saucepan with 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tsp cornstarch, a splash of vanilla extract, 2 TB brandy, and a pinch of allspice. Bring to simmer and cook slowly until thickened.
-Serve both ‘sauces’ along side of the room temperature tart. Enjoy:)