Jamie Oliver's Amalfi Lemon Tart

My daughter wanted to do some baking with me and I picked up this recipe as it looked like it would be easy.  Initially I thought I would just get a pastry base from the supermarket as I am not much of a baker.  But when I read the ingredients, I realized that I would have to do this the hard way - so got all the ingredients instead.  I must say that as we were blind baking the pastry shell, the smell from the oven was just mind blowing!  For a first attempt, we were all very pleased with the outcome.

Ingredients 

1.  For the Pastry

250 gm plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50 gm icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
75 ml olive oil
75 ml Greco di Tufo white wine 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

2. For the Filling

5 large lemons
500 gm good quality ricotta cheese
150 gm caster sugar
2 large free range eggs

To make raspberry coulis:

450 gm frozen raspberries
8 tablespoons caster sugar
1/4 cup water
a pinch of table salt
1 table spoon lemon juice

Place all of the ingredients for the coulis in a saucepan and simmer until sugar has dissolved.  Do NOT boil.

Transfer mixture to a blender and blend till smooth.

Using a mesh strainer, strain mixture into a bowl and continue pushing residue of mixture through.  Discard seeds.

Transfer to a bottle and keep in fridge until serving.

By the way, I didn't spend time searching for Greco di Tufo - I used this brand from Aldi instead:

Method: 

To make the pastry, put the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl with a good pinch of sea salt. Make a well in the middle, then add the oil, wine and vanilla paste. Use a fork to whip up the wet mixture, gradually bringing the flour in from the outside until it comes together as a ball of dough. Tip on to a lightly floured surface and knead for just a couple of minutes, then wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

On a flour-dusted surface, roll out the pastry to about 3mm thick. Loosely roll it up around the rolling pin and unroll it over a 25cm loose-bottomed tart tin, easing and pushing it carefully into the sides. Trim off any excess, patch up any holes, then prick the base with a fork, cover with clingfilm, and chill in the freezer for 1 hour 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. When the time’s up, bake the pastry case blind for 25 minutes, or until lightly golden. Meanwhile, finely grate the zest of 1 lemon and put aside. Squeeze all the lemons to give you 150ml of juice, then whisk with the rest of the filling ingredients until smooth, by hand or in a food processor. Pour into the tart case and bake for 30 minutes, dusting with icing sugar and sprinkling over the lemon zest for the last 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool – it will have a slight wobble, but will set as it cools. Dust with extra icing sugar, then slice and serve.

Jamie recommends serving with ice cream, seasonal berries or to have a slice with black coffee, the Italian way.  I served it with raspberry coulis on the side.