Lemon meringue pies
Sablée pastry
Ingredients for a tart 22-24 cm's diametre
200 g plain flour
25 g almonds flour
100 g cold butter
2 g (a small pinch) of salt
75 g icing sugar
1 medium egg (40 g)
Lemon Custard
- 300 g Eggs
- 200 g Caster Sugar
- 200 g Soft Butter
- 12 g of maizena (corn starch) or special powder for flan and creme pâtissiere
- Zeste of 2 lemons
- 120 ml Lemon Juice
Italian Meringue
- 100 g Egg White
- 200 g Caster Sugar
- 70 g Water
Picture 1
Pâte sablée. (find a detailed recipe in the Basic Techniques)
Mix the flour and diced cold butter until the mixture has a sandy texture (Picture 1).
Add the ground almonds (almond flour), salt and icing sugar and mix all the ingredients for a few seconds.
Picture 2
Add the eggs at last and mix until until the mixture comes together as a ball of dough (Picture 2).
Gather the pastry into a disc, put it in cling film and set in the fridge for 1 hour before using it.
Picture 3
Line the tar tin with the pâstry , pick with a fork and put it in the oven pre-heated at 180° (370 F) for 15 minutes.
The tarlet should be evenly golden brown but not too dar (Picture 3)
Lemon Custard
To make the lemon custard, we use the same technique as for Patissière Cream (find detailed step-by-step recipe in the Basic Techniques)
In a saucepan , bring to the boil the lemon juice.
Put the eggs , and sugar into a large bowl and whisk well...
Then add the corn starch and the lemon zest and whisk to combine
Remove the pan from the heat , and pour 1/3 of the boiling lemon juice on top of the eggs' mixture stir with a hand whisk.
Then pour the lemon juice & eggs mixture in the pan with the rest 2/3 of boiling lemon juice.
Put the mixture on the head and bring to the boil at small heat . Cook the lemon crème for 2-3 minutes and whisk the it continuously.
Leave the custard to cool to 50 -60 °C and incorporate the soft butter.
Remove the cold sablée pastry from it tin and fill it with the lemon cream .
Italian Meringue
Whisk the egg whites in the clean bowl of an electric mixer.
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan over a medium heat and boil to a temperature of 121°C (250°F) - Picture 4..
Gently pour the boiling syrup very slowly into the meringue - have the machine on a slow speed while this is in process (Picture 5)
When all the sysrup is incorporated, retourn the machine to full speed and whisk to a stiff meringue and until the mixture is cold in temperature (50°C) - Picture 6.
Picture 4
Picture 5
Picture 6
Fill a piping bag fitted with a fluted nozzle with the meringue eand decorate the tart.
.Blowtorch the meringue by placing the flame close to it and moving the flame quicly across the meringue, or bake the pies cold from the fridge for 1 minute at 240°C/475°F
