Sunday 23 Oct – the day I took a Jamie Oliver recipe and created a monstrosity.

I like to bake on Sundays. I find it relaxing and enjoyable to try new recipes and create something a little different. However, this Sunday was a far from relaxing experience.

I have fond memories of lemon tart from holidays in Italy. Refreshing, light and dangerously easy to eat, I’m taken back to sunny days of leisure set against a beautiful backdrop. So, when I found a recipe for Amalfi lemon tart from Jamie Oliver, I decided to attempt to recreate that holiday feeling, on a rainy October day. 

Two trips to the supermarket later (the first to buy the ingredients, the second for a flan dish after giving up looking the one that I’m still sure I have), the pastry creation commenced.
Pastry and I have history. I have thrown it across the room after its refusal to cooperate. I have put it in the bin and changed meal plans. More recently, I’ve admitted defeat and just bought it instead. Afterall, if Nadiya says it’s OK, that is good enough for me.

However, this recipe required a sweet pastry, which I could not find in my local supermarket. I was dubious of how this would turn out. After 30 minutes in the freezer, the pastry sat on the table, plotting how it could ruin my day. It chose to break up in my hands and stick to the table – it easily defeated the flour it was placed on. After arguing with it, I mosaiced it into the flan dish and put it back it the freezer for 90 minutes.

Mixing the filling was straight forward enough – I’d even bought slightly posher ricotta cheese thinking that this tart would truly be something special.
Once the pastry had served it’s time, it headed into the oven for 30 minutes, after which, the lemony cheese was poured over. Following the recipe to a t, it was then baked for a further 30 minutes.

My anticipation was great. It looked pretty good through the window of the oven. Awkward to remove once its time was up, I managed to brush the top of the tart with my oven glove, and upon reacting to this, my wrist made contact with the shelf of the oven.

Holding my wrist under the running cold tap, I glared at the tart on a cooling rack. This had better have been worth it.
Once it was cool, I took a bite. The pastry was a little over done, but passable. The real villain here was the sticky, eggy and only slightly lemony (despite juice and zest both being present) concoction that filled it. Utterly revolting.

I decided to leave it overnight and hid it in a tin – maybe it would, somehow, taste better in the morning.  Nope. I cursed it as I disposed of it and faced the working week tartless. Not only this, but the burn acts as a reminder of this disaster. It did cross my mind of getting a sadistic “pukka” tattoo above the burn, to serve as a reminder – I’m not quite there, but give it time.

So, my lesson from all this is – no more Jamie Oliver recipes in this house. I shall leave this to those who know better and retreat for the next few bakes to my safe territory of cakes.

Should you be brave enough to attempt this recipe, it can be found here:

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/amalfi-lemon-tart/

Good luck, you brave soldiers.