Candied kumquats lemon tart

Remember when I spoke of the orange jewels previously? I made some candied kumquats as I knew I could keep them longer in the fridge before actually deciding what I should do with them.

Candied kumquats lemon tart

Sliced kumquats to make vanilla bean candied kumquats

Talk about alluring. These lil' sunshine slices candied perfectly, and with the addition of vanilla bean, my oh my, it makes for a tasty treat.

I had plans to meet Evan to catch up and have a baking session at my new place, but time and time again, we had last minute stuff that inevitably crop up, thus we had to postpone it quite a fair number of times. I was initially planning to serve these together with what we had plan to bake, but I was so eager to try them soon that I baked something citrusy to use about half of my candied kumquats stash (leaving about half so that I can still incorporate into our planned baking session if needed...)

I wanted to try out a new recipe for the tart crust. I had my doubts while working on it as it turned out really wet and and the dough was quite hard to handle in the sense that it got heated up pretty quickly so I had trouble lining the tart ring properly. But my Sis ended up really liking the crust! Saying that it bore some resemblence to her favourite tart crust from Delifrance (which she uses as a benchmark to measure my homebaked goodies always).

I used a trusty recipe for the lemon cream that I've used before. But I was, as usual, feeling really guilty about the amount of butter called for in the recipe that I  reduced the amount just slightly to see if the taste would be affected. The taste was still good in my humble opinion, so I guess a little less fat does good for the consumers' (aka, our) bodies. ;)

The recipes for the candied kumquats and lemon cream are stated below.

Candied kumquats lemon tart

Candied kumquats (adapted by Steph at Desserts for Breakfast)
340 g kumquats
1/2 vanilla bean
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water

Wash and slice the kumquats thinly. Remove the seeds. Place kumquats in a saucepan. Add vanilla bean, sugar and water.
Bring to a boil. Cook for about 20-30 minutes until the kumquats are translucent.
Drain the kumquats and return the syrup to heat. Return to a boil, cooking until the liquid thickens. Remove from heat and let cool briefly.

Lemon Cream (used previously here)
3/8 cup lemon juice
lemon and kumquat zest (as much as you want)
2 eggs
125g caster sugar
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

To make the lemon cream, place the sugar in a large bowl.
Finely zest lemons (and a few kumquats) and add the zest to the sugar. Mix with the tip of your fingers.
Add the eggs and lemon juice and whisk well.
Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water without touching, in order to thicken the cream.
Stir constantly, it is ready when it coats a wooden spoon.
Remove from the heat and let cool a little before adding the pieces of soft butter tablespoon by tablespoon. Mix well by hand first until the butter is melted, then with a hand mixer to lighten the cream. It can take a few mins.
Once the crust is cold, fill with lemon cream. Level it and chill in fridge overnight, top with candied kumquats before serving.