Cool, creamy, and refreshing lemon blueberry tart comes together with 10 ingredients. The simple lemon filling sits in a flaky shortbread crust and is swirled with homemade blueberry sauce. After the first bite of this sweet, tangy, and buttery tart, it’s impossible to put your fork down. Enjoy this beautiful dessert for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, spring or summer celebrations, and more.
I knew a tart or pie version of our beloved lemon blueberry cake would be a hit in my household AND with many of you reading this. I’m always dreaming up ways to use this unbeatable flavor combination such as lemon blueberry muffins or lemon blueberry cupcakes. A beautiful tart with tons of fresh flavor was definitely my imagination’s top choice. I cannot wait for you to try this one.
Lemon Blueberry Tart Details
- Texture: I went back and forth about which type of crust to use for this lemon tart, but shortbread seemed most fitting. It’s pleasantly crumbly with a flaky texture that melts in your mouth. The crust contrasts perfectly with the creamy and lush filling on top, making this one of our favorite spring dessert recipes and Easter brunch recipes.
- Flavor: If I were to describe the taste of pure sunshine, it would definitely be this lemon blueberry tart. The lemon flavor is delightfully fresh and bright, and there’s just enough tang to complement all the sweetness. You really only need a small slice since there’s such a strong punch of flavor, but honestly I’ve never witnessed anyone stopping at 1 serving. (HA!)
- Ease: There are 3 components to the tart and each must be prepared separately, but there’s nothing really complicated about the entire process. Take your time and read through the recipe before you start.
- Time: It only takes about an hour to prep and bake the tart. But you’ll want to cool and chill it before serving, so set aside a few hours to complete the entire recipe. It’s wonderful when made the day ahead, too! Oatmeal lemon crumble bars are another excellent option for an even quicker lemony treat.
3 Parts to This Recipe
- Buttery Shortbread Crust: I make this shortbread crust with a lot of different desserts and it always reminds me of pie crust, but it’s so much easier. There’s no food processor or pastry cutter needed—instead simply combine melted butter with sugar, vanilla, salt, and flour and press into a tart pan or pie dish. You don’t even need to chill the dough before using. You’ll notice we use the same crust for our raspberry streusel bars, apple pie bars, and we double the recipe for our lemon bars. Keep in mind that these other desserts may require different oven temperatures and that’s because the desserts take longer, overall, to bake through. We bake the crust at 350°F (177°C) for this particular tart recipe.
- Lemon Filling: A lot of lemon tarts are prepared with a curd filling, but this one is thick, creamy, and rich. I use a similar lemon filling for our creamy lemon pie. I halved it for this tart, then cut down on the egg yolks. The egg yolks help the filling set, but I wanted the finished tart to remain soft. I think you’ll really love it. We’ll use only 1 egg yolk.
- Blueberry Sauce Swirl: You’ll enjoy pure blueberries without much else in the way. We hardly add any sugar to the blueberry sauce (some is needed to help them break down), so the natural flavor can really shine. Cook it on the stovetop for a few minutes, let it cool a little bit, then swirl some into the lemon filling. Feel free to strain it if you don’t want any blueberry lumps. You can use a toothpick or knife to swirl.
Can I Use a Graham Cracker Crust Instead?
A graham cracker crust will fall apart and crumble under this wet filling, so I suggest sticking with the shortbread crust for this recipe. If you wish to use a graham cracker crust, make these lemon blueberry cheesecake bars instead.
The shortbread crust dough is thick and a little greasy—don’t be nervous if it looks a little wet. Press it tightly into your pan and pre-bake it before adding the filling.
Creamy Lemon Tart Filling
You need one 14 ounce (weight) can of full-fat sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and zest, and 1 egg yolk. That’s it. Fresh lemon juice is best. Here is a wonderful juicer if you don’t have one and if you need a recommendation for a zester, I use and love this one.
Spread the filling into the pre-baked crust.
I recommend making the blueberry sauce first so it’s ready when you need it. The recipe moves pretty quickly once you begin pre-baking the crust.
How to Make Mini Lemon Blueberry Tarts
Try using this recipe for about 10 mini tarts in mini tart pans. I don’t recommend a muffin pan for turning this recipe into mini tarts. Divide crust mixture between each mini tart pan (bake these in batches if you have less than 10), press firmly into the bottom, and bake for 8 minutes to help set the crust. It’s usually easiest to bake mini tart pans on a larger baking sheet. No need to poke holes in the crust before adding the filling as directed for the full size tart below. Pour filling into warm crusts, drop a few tiny spoonfuls of blueberry sauce on each, then swirl as directed below. Bake for 9-10 minutes or just until the centers no longer jiggle. Cool completely, then chill for at least 1 hour before removing from tart pans and serving. (Or serve in tart pans.)
Lemon Blueberry Tart Variations
If you want to switch up some flavors, be our guest! Here are the variations we tested. We’re unsure of the results outside of these listed changes, so let us know if you try anything else.
- Lime Tart: Switch the lemon juice and zest for lime juice and zest. Feel free to keep the blueberry swirl or skip it. You could also use the strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry swirl.
- Strawberry Swirl: Replace blueberries with 1 cup chopped fresh or frozen strawberries. You can’t really detect the strawberry seeds in the baked tart, but feel free to strain the sauce through a fine mesh sieve before swirling into the filling.
- Raspberry or Blackberry Swirl: Replace blueberries with 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries or blackberries and add 1 more teaspoon of sugar to the sauce (for a total of 3 teaspoons). Strain the finished sauce through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds before swirling into the filling.
- We haven’t tested other citrus besides lime or lemon. We do not recommend swapping the lemons for orange zest/juice because the tart will be very, very sweet. You really need the tang from lemons or limes. We haven’t tested this recipe with grapefruit.
See Your Lemon Blueberry Tarts!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge! Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
PrintLemon Blueberry Tart
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours (includes chilling)
- Yield: serves 8-10
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
There are 3 parts to this creamy lemon blueberry tart and each are prepared separately before bringing them all together. For best success, take your time and read through the recipe before starting.
Ingredients
Blueberry Sauce
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice (or water)
- 1 cup (140g) fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw)
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Shortbread Crust
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
Filling
- 1 (14 ounce weight) can full-fat sweetened condensed milk
- 6 Tablespoons (90ml) lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (1 lemon)
- 1 large egg yolk
Optional Garnishes
- Lemon slices, blueberries, leftover blueberry sauce, whipped cream
Instructions
- Blueberry Sauce: Using a fork, mix the cornstarch and lemon juice together in a small bowl until the cornstarch has dissolved. Set aside. Warm the blueberries and sugar together in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes, mashing the blueberries as best you can against the bottom and sides of the pan to help break them up. Stir in the cornstarch mixture. Cook for 2 more minutes as the sauce thickens, stirring and mashing the blueberries to break them up as desired. Remove sauce from heat and set aside at room temperature until step 6. Makes about 1/2 – 2/3 cup blueberry sauce and you’ll use about half for the swirl. (Reserve extra for garnish/serving.)
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C).
- Crust: Mix the melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the flour and stir to completely combine. The dough will be a little greasy and very thick. Using a silicone spatula or your hands, press dough firmly into a 9-inch tart pan (no need to grease it), making sure the layer of crust is even on the bottom and all around the sides. It may seem like it won’t fit, but it will. You can use the bottom of a measuring cup to pack the crust in too, but sometimes it sticks.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned. Remove from the oven. Using a fork, poke a few holes all over the top of the warm crust (not all the way through the crust). This helps the filling stick.
- Filling: Whisk all of the filling ingredients together until combined. Pour into warm crust. Stir up the blueberry sauce because it has likely thickened. It can still be warm when you use it in this step. If it’s too thick, warm it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds. Drop spoonfuls of blueberry sauce all over the top, using about half of the sauce. Reserve the rest of the sauce for serving. Using a toothpick or knife, gently swirl the sauce and filling together. Shimmy the pan back and forth 2-3 times to let the sauce and filling settle down into the crust a bit.
- Bake for 17-19 minutes, just until the center of the tart no longer jiggles when you give the pan a light tap. It will still be a little sticky on top. Avoid over-baking because the tart will taste rubbery. (Tip: Err on the side of under-baking because the filling also has a chance to set up in the refrigerator. You want a creamy soft filling.)
- Remove tart from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Cool completely at room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator uncovered for at least 2 hours and up to 1 day. If chilling for longer than 2 hours, cover it. After chilling, remove the sides of the tart pan if your pan has removable sides.
- Slice and serve with optional garnishes including any leftover blueberry sauce.
- Cover leftovers tightly and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can bake, cool, and chill the tart 1 day in advance. See step 7. The filling must be poured on a warm crust so it will stick, so I don’t recommend pre-baking the crust ahead of time. You can prepare the filling and blueberry sauce in advance though. Cover both and refrigerate until ready to use. The blueberry filling will be quite solid after refrigerating, so warm it up on the stove or in the microwave until thinned out again. (It can be warm when you swirl it into the filling.) Baked and cooled tart freezes well up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | 9-inch Tart Pan | Cooling Rack
- Tart Pan: A 9-inch tart pan with or without removable sides (it doesn’t matter) is ideal for this recipe. If you use other size tart pans, the bake times and thickness of the tart will differ. You can also use a 9-inch pie dish, but slicing the tart isn’t quite as neat. The bake times are the same. For mini tart pans, see post above. I don’t recommend a springform pan because the crust leaks. We haven’t tested this recipe in a round cake pan or as bars.
- Blueberry Sauce: If you don’t want blueberry lumps in your tart, feel free to run the blueberry sauce through a fine mesh sieve.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk: Make sure you are using sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated milk. There are no successful replacements for sweetened condensed milk in this particular recipe– it’s really the key ingredient. (Sometimes half-and-half or heavy cream works as a substitution, but then you’ll have to test with varying amounts of sugar since both are unsweetened.) Use one 14 ounce can full-fat sweetened condensed milk. Do not use fat free because the tart will not set. Keep in mind that 14 ounces is the listed weight on the can. 1 standard 14 ounce can is a little over 1 liquid cup.
Keywords: lemon blueberry tart
I brought this tart to my book club. All the ladies raved about it. I saved some for my family too and my husband deemed it “crazy good!” This recipe comes together so easily. It will definitely make it into a regular rotation. Might try a lemon raspberry combo next time.
★★★★★
This recipe was so easy and fun to make! The crust was so yummy! I can’t wait to try it with other flavors.
★★★★★
We enjoyed this recipe very much, and will definitely be making this again. The only issue we had was not tasting the blueberries before we made it and they were quite tart. We would have used water instead of lemon juice if we had known, as it was SO tart. So we just left the drizzle off. Thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
This recipe was very easy to make. I do think the lemons over powered the blueberries, but my entire family like lemon, so we really enjoyed it. We enjoyed it so much that I have made it twice.
Hello Sally,
The tart was delicious, but I don’t think my dough was right. In your video are you using the exact same amounts of ingredients as in the written recipe? It is possible my scale was on strike yesterday, but I ended up with much less dough than in the video and it was overflowing with butter. Some of it actually oozed out during baking…
Taste-wise it was very crunchy, still delicious, but it did not resemble pie crust at all.
What went wrong? Can you help, please?
Thank you
★★★★★
Hi Jarka! Yes, in the video we’re following the same recipe. It takes a bit of time to spread it out evenly – was your crust thick? Did you use a 9 inch tart pan, or could it have been a bit larger? So glad you enjoyed it!
What a delicious dessert! I made this recipe into mini tarts and they are so yummy!
★★★★★
This tart was delicious and looked beautiful! The crust was so easy to make and everything came together very quickly. I didn’t have a tart pan so I used a 9 inch pie pan, which worked great. My kids have already asked me to make it again!
★★★★★
Hey does anyone know- can I simply use gluten free flour instead? I have a gluten intolerant relative! But I’ve never made something gluten free before thanks
Hi Elizabeth, we haven’t tested this recipe with gluten free flour. We don’t think it should be a problem though. Let us know if you try it.
Very easy to make. I used freshly ground flour for the shortbread crust. I also used a 9″ pie pan and it worked just fine. Subbed the blueberries with a cup of strawberries. I did also reduce the lemon as I afraid it may become too tart, but felt that I could have easily done the full amount and enjoyed it just as much (it is possible the strawberries make it sweeter than blueberries too).
Will definitely make again!
★★★★★
Terrific! I made a strawberry version for Easter and not a crumb was left. I’m going to try the blueberry this weekend. Thanks for another wonderful recipe.
★★★★★
I don’t have a tart pan but i have a pie pan can i use that instead?
★★★★★
The tart was delicious! I liked the creamy texture plus it was very easy to make. I tried Meyer lemons for the first time while making this recipe. They gave the tart a floral flavor and probably sweeter than what the recipe called for. I plan to make it again using the regular lemons hoping for a more tart flavor.
This was my first ever tart and I am so glad I chose this recipe. It was very simple and easy to bake. You just can’t go wrong.
I absolutely loved this recipe. The filling is so creamy and delicious. The shortbread seemed strange at first because it was very greasy, but go with it! It was absolutely perfect and tasted amazing. My family demolished it immediately!
★★★★★
I added a teaspoon more lemon juice and a quarter teaspoon more zest because I like my lemon dessert to my lips pucker 🙂
Turned out super delicious!
★★★★★
Addition to the „Variations“ section: Boysenberry swirl. Highly recommend it, if you can get your hands on some!
★★★★★
As many others have said, so easy and so delicious! And it freezes very well. We just defrosted half of it to have tonight, with half the sauce too. It was as good as fresh.
★★★★★
This recipe was easy and absolutely delicious! The shortbread crust was perfect for the cream lemon blueberry filling. Everyone loved it. Another great challenge!! Thank you.
Great recipe. First time making a tart, and this was definitely a keeper. I love lemony desserts, and this one didn’t disappoint. My wife was a bit leery because she doesn’t like the taste of condensed milk, but that flavor did not come through because of the strong lemon flavor. Thanks for another great, easy recipe.
The only issue I had was with regard to the instruction, “Bake for 17-19 minutes, just until the center of the tart no longer jiggles when you give the pan a light tap.” The filling, even when I just put it into the pie shell, was too thick to jiggle. I checked it after baking for a while, and it still didn’t jiggle. I baked it for 16 minutes, and the results turned out great (not at all tough), but I’m not sure why I was unable to use the “jiggle” test??
★★★★★
I baked this today with either blueberry or raspberry sauce in various sizes – thanks for your notes it worked out well and tastes scrumptious! Thank you for a fun challenge and getting me back to baking after a short break.
★★★★★
This was my first Baking Challenge as well! Good luck!
This was my first time making a tart, I had to purchase the pan. The recipe was easy to read and follow. The tart received rave reviews from my friends. I need to adjust my time as I think the crust was a bit overdone, but I always go with the middle in the range of times.
★★★★★
I just made this today and it is so fantastic! I had to double the recipe because my pan is bigger and I didn’t realize that until after I had started to put the first batch of dough into the pan. I love that this recipe is easy to double.
It is so delicious and I could have eaten the filling straight from the bowl without baking it! I will definitely be making this again in the future.
★★★★★
This recipe is a winner and crowd pleaser. Can’t get over how simple this was to make! The crust was divine. Thank you Sally for this recipe I will keep in my recipe binder forever!!
★★★★★
I made this for the April Baking Challenge. It’s the first challenge I’ve been brave enough to try and I was really excited for this one! I’ve never made a tart but love lemon and blueberry. Boy am I glad I took the leap! This tart is simply delicious! The lemon filling reminds me of lemon pie and the blueberry sauce compliments it perfectly! I can’t wait to make this again and try some different berry combinations!
This recipe is easy and delicious! We are a pie loving family and especially enjoyed the shortbread crust. My toddler helped make the filling. Thank you so much for a recipe that is a keeper.
★★★★★
This was so tasty! I bought a tart pan last year but hadn’t gotten around to using it, so when I saw this recipe I was so excited to break it in. The recipe was easy to make and was the perfect dessert for Sunday dinner. Thanks, Sally!
★★★★★
This recipe was my first time making a tart, and it was incredible! I was definitely intimidated by it at first but it was actually quite simple and came out delicious! I did add a bit of sugar ( probably a tablespoon or two) to the filling, just to sweeten it a bit more.
★★★★★
This recipe is amazing and so easy. It was a big hit! I will definitely be making this again sometime. Thank you for the recipe 🙂
★★★★★
Trying g.to make this but oy have 10 inch tart pan suggestions ? 1 1/2 times recipe or anything g else you. An suggest though will be buying right size pan at later date.
Thanks.
Hi Laura, We haven’t tested this in a 10 inch pan. The tart will be thinner but it should still work. Let us know if you give it a try!
I was so surprised at how easy this was to make! It was also super delicious. I don’t normally enjoy lemon flavored desserts, but I loved this. The blueberry had a sweetness that was great flavor contrast to the tart citrus flavor. My boyfriend isn’t as obsessed with sweets as I am, but he really loved this one! Thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★