Tart Treats, part one

I always look forward to looking at a restaurant's dessert menu especially when it has a variety of options to suit all kinds of dessert cravings. I always find myself checking out their "tart" offering. While I don't usually pick the tart dessert over, say, the chocolate one out of a menu, it stll always intrigues me to see if there is something new, other than a lemon sorbet, to be had.

Lately, I've encountered two such intriguing twists to pucker tart treats. The first one is lemongrass bar.

Out of all tart treats, my favorite is a good lemon bar. The basic elements of a lemon bar are a really good lemon curd recipe and a really good base or crust recipe. Once you have these two elements, you can go crazy with your variations and twists. Lemon curd is made when lemon, sugar eggs and a thickening agent (butter or cornstarch or flour) are combined and cooked. On the job, I've made lemon curd many different ways depending on the "house" recipe and every way resulted in a different end product. Some more delicate than others, some creamier than others, others more buttery, others very tart.

Because of lemongrass' properties - the floral note and lemon-like aroma - it is the perfect twist to the traditional lemon bar. The lemongrass bar recipe I encountered in my readings is so inspired that I had to try it. I did not have lemongrass on hand but had lots of ginger and lemons. I thought that a ginger/lemon zest combination comes close to lemongrass' floral-citrus qualities. So my final product is ginger lemon bar with a coconut crust.


Very happy with the results. I've been in search of a reliable lemon curd recipe and found it in this sugar, lemon, flour combination. The result is creamy, tart, spicy and sweet.

Next time, I shall try it with lemongrass.

Crusty creamy and tart. Ginger and lemon go great together