I love meringues. I remember as I a little girl, I used to be fascinated at how the gooey translucent egg white could be transformed into a thick fluffy white cloud simply by beating them with an electric beater. I love the way they smell and I love the contrast between the sweet crumbly texture of the crust on the outside and the soft cotton floss-like texture on the inside.
In this recipe, the tangy lemon custard marries beautifully with the sweetness of the meringues and the crust adds that extra “Oomph” to make it a very satisfying dessert.
Inspired by various recipes from delicious magazine subscriptions & Jamie Oliver’s meringue recipe
Makes 4 pies
Ingredients: For the shortcrust pastry
- 200 grams plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 100 grams chilled unsalted butter, chopped
- 2 tbsp of cold water, plus extra if needed
Ingredients: For the meringues
- 4 large egg whites
- 200 grams caster sugar
- a pinch of salt
Ingredients: For the lemon curd
- 1tsp lemon zest
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 100 grams butter
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 1/4 tsp gelatine
Method for meringues:
- Preheat oven to 130 degree celsius and line a flat baking tray with baking paper.
- Put egg whites in a large bowl and whisk on medium till firm peaks are formed.
- Gradually add the sugar and salt with the mixer still beating but on high speed for 7 minutes or so till the mixture looks glossy. (Test meringue mixture with your fingers – it should not feel grainy. Texture should be smooth. But be careful not to overbeat the mixture.)
- Spoon meringue mixture onto baking tray and size them to fit the top of little pastry tart pans. Use a spatula to shape the meringue to give it a wispy look.
- Place the tray in the oven for an hour till crisp on the outside.
- Mix flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the butter.
- Use the rub in method i.e using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour mixture till it resembles bread crumbs.
- Add a little water to the mixture and stir with knife till mixture begins to come together into a ball.
- Lightly flour the workbench and knead briefly to form a smooth, firm dough.
- Wrap the ball of dough in glad-wrap and chill in refrigerator for 1/2 hour.
- After chilling, roll pastry out on a floured workbench to 5mm thick and drape over pastry tart pan, pressing the dough into the pan and trimming the edges.
- Prick the base with a fork and chill for 20 minutes.
- By this time, the meringues would be ready to be removed form the oven. Remove meringues and increase oven temperature to 200 degree celsius.
- Line pastry with uncooked rice / pastry weights and blind bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove rice/weights and place pastry pans back into the oven to bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.
Method for lemon curd:
- Now, we can prepare the lemon curd.
- Put the lemon zest, lemon juice, butter, eggs and sugar in a heat resistant bowl and place over the top of a pot of boiling water.
- Stir for 5 mins, then add the gelatine to the mixture.
- Stir for about 10mins till mixture begins to thicken.
- Remove from heat and allow the custard to cool.
- Spoon the cooled lemon curd into the pastry crust and top with meringue.
- Serve up and enjoy :0)
CHRISTINE!!!!! I WANT ONE NOW! I LOVE LEMONS! LEMONS! I made lemon curd before but didn’t know what else to do with it apart from spreading on bread, and was too scared to make one of these…your lemon tarts look so divine! And your tart shells…you star.
Heeheeheehee…. U lemonhead
U always make me feel good about my cooking. Try the lemon slice recipe. That one’s seriously good and definitely a winner with lemonheads. xoxo See u in November!
Can’t wait. Make me one please? I’ll sing you a song, rub your toes. I’m linking you on my blog m-kay!
Of course I’ll make u some!!