Lavish Lemon Meringue

Look at this lavish lemon meringue pie! What a classic dessert. We all had it as kids on a Sunday after the Sunday roast. Fantastic!

Now, as for making this delectable dessert, it’s all fairly easy, although there is quite a lot to do. There’s the pastry to make (unless you cheat and buy some ????), the filling to prepare and make, and, of course, the meringue.

The thing is though, although you have a few things to do to make this lavish lemon meringue pie, the end result is just so worth it. Follow me below and, just in time for dinner this evening you’ll have this perfect pudding!!

 

1. Get the ingredients together

As always, get the ingredients all measured out and together ready for the cooking and half the job is done. What I did was to set aside 3 separate groups of ingredients. Those for the pastry, those for the meringue and, finally those for the filling.

With all of the ingredients together it’s time to start cooking. You should start with the pastry, then the filling and, finally, the meringue.

2. Make the pastry

The simple way of making the pastry is to put the flour, butter, icing sugar, and egg yolk in a blender and, using the pulse function, mix all the ingredients together until they start to bind a form a pastry.

However, if you don’t have a blender then you’ll have to make the pastry using the traditional method.

For this, put the flour and icing sugar in a bowl and mix together. Then add the butter and simple squash these 3 ingredients together over and over again. Then, keep rubbing the mixture lightly through your hands until you have a breadcrumb like texture.

Next, add the egg.

Finally, mix this all together and knead until a pastry ball is formed. This should only take a minute or so.

 

 

3. Form the lavish lemon meringue pie base

You now need to form the base and blind bake it. Blind baking is a method used in baking when the filling of the pie will take a shorter time to bake than the pastry used for the pie. It’s commonly used for desserts with pastry bases, and savoury dished like quiche.

The first thing to do is roll the pastry out so that it will fit a 25 cm cake tin. The best type of tin to use for a lemon meringue pie is a fluted cake tin with a removable base. Fill the tin and push the pastry into the tin flutes and break off any excess pastry so you end with a neat base. Then dock the pastry with a fork buy pricking holes in the base.

Before baking line the base with tin foil and add either baking beads or any dried pulses just to weigh the foil down and stop the pastry from moving.

Now bake the base by placing in a pre-heated oven at 200C / 180C Fan for 15 minutes. After this remove the foil and weights and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the pastry has gone golden.

It’s now time to make the filling but before you start, turn the oven down to 180C / 160C Fan.

4. Make the lemon curd filling

To make the filling for the lemon meringue pie put the cornflour, sugar and lemon zest into a medium-sized saucepan. Add the lemon juice and orange juice/water mixture. Heat the mixture over low heat until the mixture starts to bubble and is smooth in texture. Remember to keep stirring constantly.

Now, take the pan off the heat and add the butter a little at a time and mix in until melted. Once all of the butter has melted then add the whisked eggs Mix well and add to the heat for a minute or two and then leave in the side to rest.

5. Make the meringue

To make the meringue add the egg whites to a mixing bowl and whisk until the mixture is fluffy and light and makes peaks if you remove the whisk.

When whisked add half of the sugar a spoonful at a time and whisk in. Then add the cornflour and mix in. Finally, repeat for with last of the sugar adding a spoonful at a time and whisking in.

6. Make the lavish lemon meringue pie

This is the fun part. Take the lemon mix and heat it up again, until boiling. Then pour this into the pastry case. Let the mixture settle and then, starting on the outside of the lemon mix, working your way to the middle, take a spoonful of meringue at a time and spread a thin layer of meringue all over the lemon mixture.

Finally, spoon the remainder of the meringue over the filling and mix up a little to make random peaks.

With the oven now at 180C / 160C Fan bake the lemon meringue pie for 20 minutes or until the meringue has gone golden.

You should leave the pie to cool for around 45 minutes and then remove from the tin. Now, leave the lemon meringue pie for at least another hour and serve. If you can leave it for another hour in the fridge it will very firm and even yummier!!

OK, my fellow food lovers. That’s about it for now. This is a great dessert so why not give it a go. I would love to know how you got on. Or check out one of my other recipes like those below…

Thanks for reading and until next time my friends…Steve.

 

7. Printable recipe