2012 Cooking Club Week 36: Lemon Meringue Pie

Random_Person

Hey guys, sorry for the slight delay, I guess it’s my turn for a recipe this week and after thinking long and hard about what to make, I’ve decided on a dessert (because who doesn’t love sugary, buttery goodness?)

I’ll be showing y’all how to make Lemon Meringue Pie. It’s such a good combination of buttery pastry, sour lemon curd and a sweet, fluffy meringue topping. I prefer eating it cold over hot but sometimes that hour or so wait until it cools down is just too much… Any ingredients that I use in the recipe can be modified to taste, as in if you don’t like too much lemon you could use less etc. The recipe is relatively simple to follow and can be prepared in stages. The pastry can be made and baked blind in advance, the same goes for the lemon curd. It can be made and left until when you want to assemble everything together. Although I would recommend that you make the meringue topping right before you’re going to use it as it will help it stay fluffier. Think that’s about everything so let’s get on with it!

First up, the pastry.

Pastry
-225g Plain Flour
-110g Cold Butter
-Pinch of salt
-1 tbsp Icing Sugar/Caster Sugar
-1 egg yolk

Now I already had pastry made and sitting in the freezer from the last time I made it so unfortunately I have no picture of the preparation of the pastry. But I’ll explain how to make it and show pictures of my pastry pre/post cooking.

-Sift your flour + salt into a mixing bowl

-Cut up the butter into small pieces and add to the flour.

-Rub in the butter by continuously rubbing the butter + flour between your fingertips until the mixture has a fine breadcrumb consistency

-When the correct consistency has been achieved add the sugar and incorporate into the mixture

-Add the egg yolk and a splash of water if needed and using your hands, work the mixture into a firm dough.

-Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to cool

-Preheat the oven to 190C and grease your tin (preferably a loose bottomed tin)

-Roll out your pastry on a floured surface so it can generously cover your tin and it’s sides i.e so you have a bottom of pastry and also sides to keep in your filling!


-Line your pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with beans/lentils/baking beans/something to weigh down your pastry (this is baking blind)

-Place in the oven for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden

-Remove the greaseproof paper, lower the oven temperature slightly and place the tin back in the oven for a further 5 minutes

-Leave your pastry case to cool until whenever you decide to move onto the next stage!


Now for the Lemon Curd & Meringue.


Lemon Curd
-100g Caster Sugar
-Zest and Juice of 4 lemons (Depending on how “tart” you want your pie to be, add less/more lemon. I thought it would be too lemony the first time I made this although it turned out fine. The lemon was sour but it went great with everything else)
-7 tbsp Cornflour
-100g Butter
-6 Egg Yolks (keep the whites for the meringue)

Meringue
-6 Egg Whites
-300g Caster Sugar

-First put all your sugar and cornflour in a large bowl and add enough water to dissolve all the ingredients


-Zest your lemons and add to 50ml of water in a small pot. Bring this pot to the boil and add slowly to your cornflour mixture until the entire mixture turns a yellow colour.



-Let this mixture cool a little before adding your butter, egg yolks and lemon juice. Mix the bowl a little before immediately putting back on the heat.


-Stir constantly on a high heat until the mixture thickens (the change will be instantaneous, one second it will be a liquid and the next a thick, lemony curd)


-Take off the heat and leave to cool slightly before pouring onto your pastry case

-For the meringue, put your 6 egg whites into a large CLEAN bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form

-At this point, add sugar bit by bit to the egg whites until it is all full incorporated into the whites

-It seems like a lot of meringue for your pie but it will all fit onto it and help to make it look great

-Spoon on top of the lemon curd and design as you wish (peaks always look good for meringues)


-Bake in the oven at a very low heat (~50C) for 45 minutes until browned on the outside but still soft on the inside. Keep a keen eye on it as it can easily burn.

After you take it out of the oven, leave it to cool for at least an hour before cutting. This allows the lemon curd to re-solidify and not ooze out everywhere whilst still molten. Enjoy!

Curry Addict

looks great, my fav desert and i want to learn to make it so ill be making this

GrahamThomas

Lemon Meringue has always been a huge hit in my house, I'll definitely give this one a try!

Stench Blossoms

No way. I only made one of these the other day and it wasn't too good.

Was hoping to make another one so I'll defo try this one.

Faith

What size dish did you use for this? I'm thinking about making it but there's only two of us so I might make a mini version .

JohnK

I've got one in the oven at the moment and I'm using a deep pie dish where the base is about 7inches and the top is 9inches and seems to be the perfect size.

pampootie

made this, it was amazing! this was something I always wanted to learn how to make and this was really easy to follow, thanks OP! can I ask though, what size dish did you use? I used an 8" round and I think it was too small, pastry could have been rolled thinner and the meringue topping is a good 5 inches high at the highest point-looks impressive but very hard to get all the layers in yer gob at once! Which is a pity because it's such a lovely contrast with the sour curd. Could be due to the fact I used large eggs instead of medium also.