Diamants au Citron

These little "lemon diamonds" are real gems! The rich pastry is like a shortbread, good enough to eat on its own. In fact, while we were baking the pastry shells, some got slightly burnt, still edible, but not exactly presentable for a wedding buffet. So of course, we wolfed them down. They were so good that we kept asking Aunty Lina to burn more pastry!

Diamants au citron
from Grand Livre de Cuisine d'Alain Ducasse by Alain Ducasse

Pastry shells:
600 g plain flour, sifted
400 g softened butter
200 g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
granulated sugar

Lemon curd:
50 cl lemon juice
100 g castor sugar
400 g butter
zest of 6 lemons
600 g eggs
150 g castor sugar

For the pastry, mix all the ingredients together except granulated sugar. Roll the pastry into a long cylinder about 1.5 cm in diameter. Let the pastry rest in the fridge for 1 hour.

Brush the pastry cylinder with a beaten egg, and roll it in the granulated sugar to coat. Cut the roll into 1 cm-thick coins and place them onto a cookie sheet. Press the centre of each "coin" with your thumb to make a little well for the lemon curd. Let the pastry rest in the fridge again for 30 minutes.

Bake the pastry at 180 °C until golden, and cool.

For the lemon curd, mix the lemon juice, castor sugar, butter and lemon zest in a bowl and heat over a bain-marie.

Beat the eggs and castor sugar together until pale. Add to the lemon mixture and heat this mixture to 85 °C. Seive and refrigerate.

To assemble these "lemon diamonds", put the lemon curd into a pastry bag and dollop a dome of lemon curd into each pastry shell.

They may be decorated with a sprinkling of lime zest.