My daughter has been asking for a lemon meringue pie forever, so I decided to make one tonight, to test a new sweet lining dough. Also to prepare some desserts for the boys to bring to school tomorrow.
There are basically three components to this pie: the crust, the lemon curd and then the meringue. I chose to make the crust with the sugar:butter:flour of 1:2:3. I thought it is an easy ratio to remember. And it turned out much richer and crumbier than the standard 1:2:4 that are used in most pastry recipes. Love it!
I used a corn starch base for the lemon curd, which give it a bit of a smell that I do not like, so perhaps I will skip the corn starch in future.
Lemon Meringue Tart
Ingredients
Short crust pastry
- 70 g Sugar
- 140 g Butter chilled and cut into cubes
- 210 g Flour
- 1 Egg yolk
Lemon curd
- 175 g Lemon juice
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Egg yolks
- 1 Tbsp Corn starch
- 100 g sugar
Meringue
- 2 Egg whites
- 100 g Caster Sugar
Instructions
Tart crust
- Put the sugar, flour and butter into a blender and blitz for 30 seconds until mixture resembles bread crumbs.
- Add the egg and blend till the dough comes together. Do not overblend.
- Refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes.
- Make the lemon curd and when done, blind cook the pastry.
Baking the Tarts
- Preheat oven at 190 degrees Celsius.
- Divide the dough into 12 flat circles.
- Line each pastry case, and put another identical pastry case over each case that is lined with the dough.
- Bake upside down for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Lemon Curd
- Whip all the ingredients over a medium heat water bath until the mixture starts to boil. Set aside.
- I used the Thermomix on Speed 3 and Heat 100 degrees Celsius.
Meringue
- Whip egg whites with sugar until stiff peak.
Assemble Tarts
- Pipe the lemon curd into the pastry case.
- Using a star nozzle, pipe the meringue on top of the lemon curd.
- Use a blow torch to brown the meringue.
- Serve with a dollop of ice-cream.
