Lemon Mousse Tart

Happy New Year everyone! How was your holiday season?

I wasn't particularly excited with holidays this year, but I have to admit I was really excited with the whole baking and cooking involved in it.

For Christmas I made my favorite walnut cake in the whole world, a roasted duck and the tastiest Beef Wellington I've ever had (which was gone in about 15 minutes, so you could tell…).
New Years Eve featured a gorgeous croquembouche, and one of my favorite band's comeback in Berlin (please don't judge, I told you guys I have a terrible musical taste!). So yeah, I guess I can call it a good holiday season after all.

Well, now back to reality and to kick off 2016 in the best way possible, I have to fight this winter wonderland that's currently outside with fun, indoor activities.
I can't think of a better thing to do during this period than baking. I mean, how could anyone?

So I've been reading a lot, getting tons of inspiration and a lot of interesting stuff is happening in my kitchen right now.
To much of my relief, most of the things I've tried making here after leaving France are of a very good quality. This was a very big concern for me ever since I've tried doing some of this stuff in a 35°C+, warm and wet São Paulo last year. The results there were nothing short of pure crap.

Thanks to Québec, I can find most of the french ingredients here (well, not here in Toronto, but I can order online from Montréal without major issues) and the local stuff, apart from mediocre butter, is of good quality.

This particular lemon mousse tart was conceived when I was still in Paris and visiting one pastry shop a day (oh, the good times!), but for one reason or another it didn't come to life until last week. I was quite unsure about the white chocolate topping and needed to make some amendments to my original idea. But I have to say it did end up being quite interesting - and more important, very delicious.

It has a pretty standard sweet pie crust (think pâte sucrée with a hint of powdered almonds), baked almond cream and topped with lemon curd and lemon mousse under a white chocolate dome. I swear I tried to smuggle some meringue in the middle, but I thought it would be too overwhelming. The final result has a good balance between sweetness, tartness, crunchiness and softness. I guess that's what all of us, pastry enthusiasts, want to achieve in the end, right?

If you want my advice to fight the cold season with some sweet baking, I'd say you could reserve some time to try this out. I mean, even if it doesn't turn out well, you can always eat the failed tests (not that I do it, no!) and have an awesome time indoors when temperatures outside are in the "minus too much" range.

Happy 2016!