Recipe Review: Lemon Tart

This is another recipe from my Irish Cooking Bible. Again, I have never had actual Irish food, so I have no idea how closely this resembles their fare.

I also have never had a Lemon Tart. I think I'm the wrong person for this job... I really ought to review things I have eaten before, but that would be far less fun for me.

First, I'm going to throw down the recipe so no one has to scroll to find it:

Ingredients:

1 refrigerated pie crust (half a 15-oz package)
5 eggs
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (I used salted...)
1/2 cup lemon juice

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 450 F.

2. Line 9 inch pie tin with pie crust. Press it to the bottom and the edges. Use a fork to poke the sides and bottom. (It doesn't say how much poking is needed. I did a few pokes on the bottom, and a lot on the sides.) Bake the crust for 9-10 minutes, or until golden brown (I forgot to watch it and it was a little more brown than golden.) Reduce the oven temp to 350 F.

3. Meanwhile, whisk eggs and cornstarch in medium bowl. Combine sugar, butter, and lemon juice in small saucepan over medium-low heat; cook and stir just until the butter is melted. Whisk in egg mixture; cook 8-10 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. (DO NOT LET IT BOIL!) Transfer to medium bowl; stir 1 minute until cooled. Let cool 10 minutes.

4. Pour the cooled lemon curd into the baked crust. Bake 25 minutes or until set. Cool completely before cutting.

This is what they wanted it to look like:

This is what mine looks like:

I accidentally tipped it when I put it in the oven...so it was not even.

Like I said earlier, I have never made lemon tart before. I don't know what the steps are supposed to look like as I go... this is what mine looked like:

There really aren't a lot of photogenic steps in this recipe.

This dessert is aptly named. It was fairly tart. It wasn't an overpowering tartness or sweetness. It was very subtle. I was expecting a taste similar to a lemon head. It was the exact opposite (as opposite as something lemon flavored can be).

I've heard that Americans use way too much sugar in everything. I googled other Lemon Tart recipes to see if we use far more sugar in this recipe. We don't. Not that I saw. There were some recipes that called for 1.5 cups of sugar, but nothing crazy.

All in all, this was a light dessert. The crust definitely needs to be less cooked after the first step. It was fairly dry since I forgot about it in the oven...oops.

Also, use a pie pan that won't flake off into your crust. The coating on ours coated our pie crust... Ew. We had to throw it away.

I think next time I'll try an American recipe. Any suggestions?