Lemon Meringue Pie

It’s an oldie but a goodie! I absolutely love a good lemon meringue pie but have to admit that up until recently I have never attempted baking it. Well recently the craving took hold of me and I was forced to recreate this old favourite of mine. Sadly, I think one of the reasons I had never attempted this dessert before was that I was under the illusion that it was incredibly fiddly and difficult. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this just isn’t the case. Lemon Meringue Pie is quite easy, there you go I’ve said it so all of you bakers out there have no excuse not to try it. I’m rubbish at following an exact recipe so I had a look at several then made my own variation. And here it is.

Pastry:

125g chilled butter

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tbsp icing sugar

60ml iced water

You need to do the pastry first so it has time to bake and cool. rub the cold butter through the flour and sugar until you have a crumbly mixture. pour in the iced water and mix until dough comes together. refrigerate dough for 20 mins or so. roll out your dough and line appropriate pie dish then put pastry lined dish back into the fridge for 1/2 an hour. blind bake the pie for about 1/2 an hour at 180 degrees. allow pie crust to cool before making lemon filling.

Lemon filling:

200ml of lemon or lime juice

Zest of all fruit used to make up 200ml

8 egg yolks

½ cup sugar

125g butter

The Lemon filling is really quite similar to making custard. you just quickly whisk up the egg yolks and sugar then pour the yolk mix, lemon juice, zest and butter into a saucepan and cook on a low heat until thickened.

Meringue:

8 egg whites

2 tbsp sugar

beat the eggs until you get soft peaks then gradually add the sugar while you're still beating the whites until you have beautiful, glossy, mountainous peaks.

Putting the pie together......

pour your lemon mix into cooled pie crust. then arrange large dollops of meringue on top of the lemon mix. you absolutely must make sure the meringue mix covers all of the lemon mix and is spread to the edge of the pie crust. this part is very important, it creates a seal that keeps the sugars from leaking out of the pie, if you don't spread the meringue to the edge you risk getting soggy pastry and no one likes soggy pastry!
bake the pie for around 10 mins or until meringue is golden, let it cool before serving yourself a generous slice.