Lemon meringue pie

Following on from the recipes for fried chicken and mashed potatoes, I will now share the glory that was the dessert at our Weekend of Food: lemon meringue pie. It was a hard effort, but completely worth it – I could stare at it all day and we certainly ate it for a good few days afterwards!

This recipe is based on one I found on Epicurious, but we made some changes regarding the base and the fact that we didn’t have cream of tartare!

Serves many, many people

For the base:

• 2/3 pack plain digestive biscuits (around 350g)
• 4 tbsp flour (35g)
• 200g butter, melted

For the meringue:

• 6 medium egg whites
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 150g sugar

For the filling:

• 6 medium egg yolks
• 50 + 200g sugar
• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 200ml cups water
• 50ml whole milk
• Zest of 4 lemons
• 120ml or 4 oz. fresh lemon juice (around 4-5 lemons)
• 50g butter

First, make the base by crushing the digestive biscuits and mixing with the flour and melted butter. Put into a cake tin and shape into a flat base with slightly raised sides. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for around 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

For the filling, add 50g sugar into the yolks and beat them hard. Keep aside. In a saucepan, mix the 200g sugar, cornstarch and salt together. Add the water and milk and whisk continuously until the mixture thickens, keeping the temperature low. Add the lemon zest and juice and whisk a bit more (total time: 10-15 minutes). Then, take the saucepan off the heat and add the yolks and butter. Whisk some more.

For the meringue, beat the egg whites with the lemon juice until it is formed into stiff peaks. Ideally, use an electric mixer… we only had a hand whisk so we took turns in beating the whites… it took a while and my arms are still sore! Once they’re quite stiff, slowly mix in the sugar and salt and whisk further.

To assemble the pie, pour the filling onto the cooled base and top with the meringue. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius until the meringue turns brown on top (around 15 minutes). Remove from oven and cool thoroughly before serving.