Lemon Blueberry Tart is the recipe that Teresa makes every spring and summer when she needs something that looks completely spectacular, tastes like pure sunshine, and is genuinely easier to make than its beautiful appearance suggests.
She presses the no-food-processor shortbread crust directly into the tart pan with her hands, pre-bakes it until just barely golden, pokes holes with a fork, pours the sweetened condensed milk lemon filling over the warm crust, drops spoonfuls of the homemade blueberry sauce all across the surface, and draws a toothpick through in lazy swirls that create the most stunning and completely professional marbled pattern with two minutes of effort. The fragrance of lemon and blueberry together in the warm oven is one of the most completely beautiful kitchen experiences in all of summer baking.
Lemon Blueberry Tart is the most stunning and completely effortless summer tart that combines a buttery press-in shortbread crust, a thick and creamy lemon filling made from sweetened condensed milk and fresh lemon juice, and a homemade blueberry sauce swirled through the filling before baking for the most beautiful marbled presentation. Bright, tangy, creamy, and completely irresistible. Come follow us on Pinterest where we share beautiful summer tart recipes and easy lemon dessert favorites from our kitchen every single week.
Table of Contents
Why You Will Love This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
This Lemon Blueberry Tart recipe is the summer bake that readers describe as tasting like pure sunshine and looking like something from a very elegant patisserie despite requiring absolutely no special pastry skills, no food processor, no pastry cutter, and no chilling of the dough. The shortbread crust is made by simply combining melted butter with sugar, vanilla, salt, and flour and pressing the thick mixture directly into the tart pan with a spatula or your hands. It bakes into the most beautifully golden and pleasantly crumbly crust that holds its shape under the creamy filling.
The sweetened condensed milk filling is the ingredient that makes this lemon tart so distinctive and so completely easy. A single can of sweetened condensed milk combined with fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and one egg yolk produces a thick and creamy filling that sets to the perfect soft and yielding texture in under twenty minutes of baking. The egg yolk helps the filling set while keeping it soft rather than firm. Our Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes make a beautifully individual and equally lemon-blueberry vibrant companion for a complete and stunning summer celebration dessert spread.
Ingredients Needed for This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
For the Blueberry Sauce:
- 1 tsp Cornstarch
- 2 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice or Water
- 1 cup (140g) Fresh or Frozen Blueberries
- 2 tsp Granulated Sugar
For the Shortbread Crust:
- ½ cup (113g) Unsalted Butter, melted
- ¼ cup (50g) Granulated Sugar
- 1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 1 cup (125g) All-Purpose Flour, spooned and leveled
For the Lemon Filling:
- 1 can (14 oz weight) Full-Fat Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 6 tbsp (90ml) Fresh Lemon Juice (about 2 lemons)
- 1 tsp Fresh Lemon Zest
- 1 large Egg Yolk
Optional Garnishes:
- Lemon Slices, Fresh Blueberries, Reserved Blueberry Sauce, Whipped Cream
How to Make This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Begin by making the blueberry sauce. Using a fork, mix the cornstarch and lemon juice together in a small bowl until the cornstarch has dissolved completely. Set aside. Warm the blueberries and granulated sugar together in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes, mashing the blueberries against the bottom and sides of the pan to break them up. Stir in the cornstarch mixture. Cook for 2 more minutes until the sauce thickens, stirring and mashing the blueberries further. Remove from heat and set aside at room temperature. The sauce makes approximately half to two thirds cup and you will use about half for the swirl with the remainder reserved for serving.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
For the shortbread crust, mix the melted butter, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the flour and stir until completely combined. The dough will be thick, greasy, and dense. Using a silicone spatula or your hands, press the dough firmly into a 9-inch tart pan making sure the layer is even on the bottom and all the way up the sides. Bake for 15 minutes until the edges are very lightly golden.
Remove from the oven. Using a fork, poke a few holes across the surface of the warm crust without going all the way through. This helps the filling adhere to the crust during baking.
For the filling, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and egg yolk until combined. Pour into the warm crust immediately. If the blueberry sauce has thickened, warm it briefly in the microwave for 5 to 10 seconds. Drop spoonfuls of the blueberry sauce all across the top of the lemon filling using approximately half the total sauce. Using a toothpick or knife, gently swirl the sauce and filling together in slow and deliberate strokes for the most beautiful marbled pattern, cara mia. Shimmy the pan back and forth two to three times to help the sauce and filling settle into the crust.
Bake for 17 to 19 minutes until the center of the tart no longer jiggles when the pan is lightly tapped. The surface will still be slightly sticky. Do not overbake. The filling will firm further in the refrigerator and overbaking produces a rubbery rather than creamy soft texture.
Cool completely at room temperature then refrigerate uncovered for at least 2 hours and up to 1 day before serving. After chilling, remove the sides of the tart pan if using a removable-base pan. Serve with the reserved blueberry sauce and optional garnishes.
How to Serve This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Present this tart on its pan base on a beautiful white serving plate for the most stunning visual impact. The swirled blueberry pattern against the pale and creamy lemon filling is genuinely one of the most beautiful tart surfaces imaginable and requires absolutely no additional decoration to look completely spectacular.
Slice into 8 to 10 wedges and serve each with a small drizzle of the reserved blueberry sauce and a dollop of fresh whipped cream for the most complete and beautifully presented slice. This tart is particularly beautiful for a Mother’s Day celebration or a spring and summer brunch table. Our Vegan Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes make a beautifully individual and equally lemon-vibrant companion for a complete and stunning lemon blueberry celebration dessert spread.
How to Store This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Cover leftovers tightly and refrigerate for up to 1 week. The tart can be made one full day in advance and stored in the refrigerator, making it one of the most ideal and practical make-ahead desserts for celebrations and gatherings. The baked and cooled tart also freezes well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
Tips to Make This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Make the blueberry sauce first before beginning the crust so it is ready and at the correct temperature when you need it in step five. The sauce should be warm or at room temperature when swirled into the filling. A sauce that has become too cold and thick to flow will not create beautiful swirls and cannot be drizzled from a spoon effectively.
Pour the lemon filling into the still-warm pre-baked crust rather than a cold one. The filling sticks to the warm crust surface much more effectively than to a cold one and produces a more cohesive tart that slices more cleanly.
Helpful Notes for This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Full-fat sweetened condensed milk is the only appropriate ingredient for the filling in this recipe and cannot be substituted with evaporated milk or fat-free condensed milk. Evaporated milk is unsweetened and has a completely different consistency and sugar content. Fat-free condensed milk does not contain enough fat for the filling to set properly. Use one standard 14-ounce can of full-fat sweetened condensed milk.
A 9-inch pie dish can be used in place of a tart pan with exactly the same baking times if a tart pan is not available. The slices from a pie dish are slightly less neat at the edges than a tart pan cut but taste entirely identical.
Variation of This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Maria made a lime blueberry version by substituting the lemon juice and zest with fresh lime juice and zest for a more tropical and deeply aromatic tart that was completely extraordinary and particularly beautiful garnished with fresh lime slices. Teresa tried a strawberry swirl version by replacing the blueberries with one cup of finely chopped fresh strawberries cooked in the same way for a bright red swirl that was visually stunning and deeply vibrant.
For a raspberry swirl version, replace the blueberries with one cup of fresh or frozen raspberries and add an extra teaspoon of sugar to the sauce. Strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds before swirling for the most silky and clean raspberry-swirled lemon tart surface. Our Lemon Bars with Shortbread Crust make a beautifully portioned and equally lemon-vibrant companion for a complete and stunning lemon celebration dessert spread.
FAQs About This Lemon Blueberry Tart Recipe
Can I use bottled lemon juice instead of fresh?
Fresh lemon juice is strongly recommended and produces a noticeably more vibrant and bright lemon flavor than bottled. Bottled lemon juice contains preservatives that dull the fresh citrus flavor and the tart will taste less lively and less bright. If only bottled is available it will work but the flavor difference is genuinely significant.
Why does my tart need to chill for 2 hours before serving?
The lemon filling requires the full chilling period to firm from its soft baked texture into a properly set and sliceable consistency. A tart removed from the refrigerator before the 2-hour minimum will have a filling that is too soft to hold a clean wedge shape when sliced and will collapse into a creamy puddle on the plate rather than a beautiful neat slice.
Can I make mini lemon blueberry tarts with this recipe?
Yes. This recipe makes approximately 10 mini tarts in mini tart pans. Divide the crust mixture between each pan, press firmly into the bottom, and bake for 8 minutes. Fill the warm crusts with the lemon filling, drop tiny spoonfuls of blueberry sauce on each, swirl gently, and bake for 9 to 10 minutes until the centers no longer jiggle. Cool completely and chill at least 1 hour before serving.
Conclusion
This Lemon Blueberry Tart is the summer bake that looks like pure sunshine and tastes like the most completely perfect combination of bright and tangy citrus and vibrant sweet berries in the most buttery and beautifully crumbly pastry shell imaginable. We hope it brings the same genuinely spectacular summer table and the same deeply satisfied and completely charmed gathering to your kitchen that it has always brought to ours. Make it, share it, and come back to tell us all about it. With all our love, Maria, Lucia, and Teresa
Print
Lemon Blueberry Tart The Most Creamy and Bright Summer Tart You Will Ever Bake
- Total Time: 4 hours including chilling
- Yield: 8 to 10 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
The most creamy and bright Lemon Blueberry Tart made with a press-in melted butter shortbread crust filled with a sweetened condensed milk lemon filling of fresh lemon juice zest and one egg yolk swirled with a homemade blueberry sauce and baked until just set. A completely stunning and easy summer tart with no special equipment required.
Ingredients
1 tsp Cornstarch for blueberry sauce
2 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice for blueberry sauce
1 cup Fresh or Frozen Blueberries
2 tsp Granulated Sugar for blueberry sauce
1/2 cup 113g Unsalted Butter melted for crust
1/4 cup 50g Granulated Sugar for crust
1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup 125g All-Purpose Flour spooned and leveled
1 can 14 oz Full-Fat Sweetened Condensed Milk
6 tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice about 2 lemons
1 tsp Fresh Lemon Zest
1 large Egg Yolk
Lemon Slices Blueberries Whipped Cream for garnish
Instructions
1. Make blueberry sauce: dissolve cornstarch in lemon juice. Cook blueberries and sugar over medium heat 3 minutes mashing berries. Add cornstarch mixture. Cook 2 more minutes until thick. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
3. Mix melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add flour and stir until combined.
4. Press dough firmly into 9-inch tart pan covering bottom and sides evenly.
5. Bake 15 minutes until edges lightly golden.
6. Poke holes across warm crust with fork. Do not go through completely.
7. Whisk sweetened condensed milk, fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and egg yolk until combined.
8. Pour filling into warm crust.
9. Drop spoonfuls of blueberry sauce across filling surface.
10. Swirl gently with toothpick. Shimmy pan 2 to 3 times.
11. Bake 17 to 19 minutes until center no longer jiggles. Do not overbake.
12. Cool completely at room temperature.
13. Refrigerate uncovered at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.
14. Serve with reserved blueberry sauce and garnishes.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Category: Dessert, Tart
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 310
- Sugar: 32g
- Sodium: 95mg
- Fat: 13g
- Saturated Fat: 8g
- Unsaturated Fat: 4g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 44g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 5g
- Cholesterol: 58mg
Keywords: lemon blueberry tart, creamy lemon blueberry tart recipe, easy lemon tart with blueberry swirl, shortbread crust lemon tart
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