A Treat for Lemon Lovers and Beyond

There are chocolate people, and there are vanilla people. I am a lemon person.

Show me a dessert menu, and I’ll choose whatever is flavored with puckery lemon or any of her citrus sisters — lime, tangerine, kumquat, yuzu. Even as a kid, I went for lemon sorbet over the mint chocolate-chip ice cream. The combination of sugar cut with enough acidic citrus juices to make my jaw ache is my confection perfection — mostly pleasure, pricked with pain.

Of all the lemony desserts one could make, I’ve always leaned hard on the classic, lemon curd tart. But there are times when it pays to branch out. This elegant tart, with tangerine, ginger and a little chocolate, is one of them.

I got the idea at my friend Shawn’s dinner party this past winter. Periodically throughout the meal of fried veal cutlets with capers and potato gratin, I’d turn to gaze at the lemon tart on the counter, glistening daisy bright.

When she sliced though it, there was a surprise: a thin layer of melted chocolate brushed over the crust. The recipe, her take on one by Suzanne Goin at Lucques in Los Angeles, ensures crisp pastry by creating a chocolate barrier between liquid curd and the pre-baked tart shell. The filling was softly gelled, sour and darkly complex from the bittersweet coating, and the crust crumbly and rich.

Even before I’d polished off my wedge, I was already adapting the recipe in my head. What would happen if I added tangerine to the lemon, since orange flavors work so well with chocolate?

A few weeks later, I tried it, and while I adored the way the tangerine and the chocolate got along, the tart was missing something — that intense lemony smack. The tangerine juice had dulled its bite.

Adding more lemon to the curd would have meant using less tangerine juice or compromising the texture. Any extra punch would have to come via the crust.

I briefly considered black pepper before settling on crystallized ginger, which has a sharpness equal to lemon, and a pleasingly chewy texture. Better yet, it turned the crust into a giant shortbread cookie. As a final touch, I spooned some tangy crème fraîche onto the top and sprinkled that with crystallized ginger, too.

The tart had brightness, depth and a hint of spice — a treat for lemon people and beyond.

Yield: 8 servings

Total time: 1 1/2 hours, plus chilling

For the tart dough:

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons/235 grams all-purpose flour

1/3 cup/40 grams powdered sugar

2 tablespoons/30 grams chopped crystallized ginger

Pinch of kosher salt

1/2 cup/113 grams unsalted butter (1 stick), cold and cubed

1 large egg, lightly beaten

For the filling:

6 large egg yolks

3 large eggs

3/4 cup fresh tangerine juice (from 3 to 4 large tangerines)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)

3 tablespoons finely grated tangerine zest

1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons/125 grams granulated sugar

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup/170 grams unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), cubed

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup/45 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped, or use chips or baking discs (1 1/2 ounces)

1/2 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

2 tablespoons/30 grams chopped crystallized ginger

Chocolate curls, for serving (optional)

1. Place the flour, sugar, crystallized ginger and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.

2. Add butter and pulse until a coarse meal forms. Add egg and pulse just until a crumbly dough comes together. Press dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight (or up to 5 days).

3. Prepare the curd: In a large, heatproof bowl, whisk together yolks and whole eggs. In a medium pot over medium heat, combine tangerine juice, lemon juice, 1 1/2 tablespoons tangerine zest, 3/4 teaspoon lemon zest, sugar, ginger, salt and butter. Once mixture is simmering, slowly pour into eggs, whisking constantly, then return mixture to pot. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium-low heat, until curd thickens enough to coat a spoon, 4 to 7 minutes. Strain into a medium bowl and stir in remaining tangerine and lemon zest and vanilla. If not using immediately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use, up to 5 days.

4. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to 3/8-inch thickness (about an 11-inch round). Place dough into a 9-inch tart pan, trimming the dough edges. Poke bottom of dough all over with a fork; chill for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.

5. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line the tart crust with foil and fill with baking weights. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and weights and continue to bake until shell is light golden, another 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Remove crust from oven and immediately sprinkle chopped chocolate evenly over the bottom. Let it sit for 1 minute to melt chocolate, then spread over the surface using an offset spatula. Let the chocolate cool for 5 minutes.

7. Scrape curd into crust. Bake until the edges are set but the center is still slightly jiggly when shaken, 25 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

8. In a small bowl, whisk together crème fraîche and crystallized ginger. To serve, top the cooled tart with crème fraîche and shave chocolate curls all over the top if you like.