People often think of lemon meringue pie as a fiddly dessert but it isn't at all, and if you use a ready-made flan case you can make it in a few minutes flat. That said, the ready-made flan cases you find in the supermarket are about 8–9 in (20–23 cm) in diameter and very shallow, whereas the pastry case you'd make yourself in a flan tin that size (or slightly larger) would be deeper, so if you do use a ready-made flan case you'll have a bit too much meringue with these quantities, in which case you could either make a couple of meringue nests with the leftovers (just spoon the meringue onto a sheet of greaseproof paper on a separate oven tray and bake for the same length of time as the pie). You can also use 2 whole lemons instead of 4 and make up the rest with bottled lemon juice instead, and although you should really cook the lemony bit in a double boiler, i.e. in a bowl over a pan of hot water, you can just as easily make it straight in the saucepan; just keep your eyes on it and don't let the sauce stick.
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4 eggs, separated
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6 heaped tbsp caster sugar
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4 whole lemons (or 2 lemons + lemon juice)
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2 tbsp cornflour
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6 tbsp cold water
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Step 1:
To make your own pastry case, grease a flan dish or loose-bottomed cake tin and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 (180°C); sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the fat in small pieces and rub in until the mixture resembles medium-fine breadcrumbs then stir in the sugar, make a well in the centre and add the liquid, pinching the mixture together with your fingers to make a dough. Knead the dough for a minute then roll it out to fit the flan dish and bake ‘blind’ for about 15 minutes with a circle of greaseproof on the base, weighed down with rice or lentils to keep the pastry flat.
Step 2:
Separate the eggs. Put the yolks in a small saucepan with half the sugar and the grated rind and all the juice from the lemons and beat together with a wooden spoon.
Step 3:
Put the pan over a very low heat until all the sugar has melted; meanwhile, mix the cornflour and water together in a small cup or bowl to make a paste.
Step 4:
Add a couple of tablespoons of the liquid from the pan to the cornflour paste, blend well then pour the whole lot back into the pan; turn the heat up a bit and stir constantly for a couple of minutes until the lemon mixture turns into a fairly thick gel.
Step 5:
Scoop the lemon mixture into the pastry case.
Step 6:
Whisk the eggs whites with half the remainder of the sugar for a couple of minutes until the meringue is very stiff and standing up in peaks then add the rest of the sugar, folding it in with a large metal spoon.
Step 7:
Top the pie with the meringue, making sure the meringue meets the pastry around the edge of the pie without any gaps,
Like The Article? Buy The Book!This article originally came from the book 'Fish Pies and French Fries, Vegetables, Meat & Something Sweet' at
How To Books.
