This is a favourite dessert in our family and was also a much loved dessert when I was growing up. My mother always made it with a shortcrust pastry base but I make mine with a shortbread base. I have adapted the shortbread from the Beechworth Bakery cookbook and it is great as a base in a variety of tarts and pies. It also makes the best, melt-in-your mouth shortbread biscuits.
You can make this pie filling with lemons, oranges or passionfruit. They all taste good, so try them all!
I made a dairy-free version of this recently. See this here: I intend to develop a gluten-free version soon.
Lemon Meringue Pie
This pie has a shortbread base with a lemony filling, made with egg yolks and then topped with egg white meringue. Lovely for a special occasion.
Ingredients
Shortbread base
Lemon Filling
Meringue topping
Instructions
Prepare shortbread base
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Mix sugar, butter, rice flour and first measure of plain flour until smooth. Use a food processor or stand mixer, if you have one.
Add egg and mix it in until smooth.
Sift together second measure of plain flour, baking powder and salt. Then add to the wet ingredients. Mix until it forms a smooth dough. If it seems too soft, add up to another 60 grams of flour.
Roll into a ball, flatten slightly and wrap in silicone, beeswax or baking paper. Place in fridge for about 30 mins to firm up.
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Bake the pastry
Preheat the oven to 200C (bake function or pastry bake,if you have it).
Remove your shortbread from the fridge.
Roll it out to fit your pie dish, I use a 20cm pie plate. It is good to line the bottom of the dish with a circle of baking paper.
The dough will be soft to handle, but just be gentle and then fix up any broken pieces in the dish. It is very forgiving, just make sure there are no holes for the filling to leak through.
Smooth down the surface, then place in freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
After 10 minutes, remove the dish. Lightly prick the surface with a fork. Then lightly place a sheet of silicone or baking paper over the surface. Place in sufficient pie weights to cover the base.
Place in the preheated oven on the middle rack for 12 minutes, then remove the weights and their sheet. Return the base to the oven for a further 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned.
This is called blind baking and allows a pie base to mostly cook through before a cooked filling is added. If you don't weight it down, the pastry will try to rise up like a tent with the hot air. If you don't have any pie weights, use rice or dried beans, (which you then keep in an airtight container for this purpose)
Lemon Filling
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Measure your lemon juice and make it up to 375 ml with water.
In a medium-sized saucepan, mix the cornflour, lemon juice and water until smooth.
Add butter, caster sugar and lemon rind.
Bring to the boil, slowly on medium-low, while continuously stirring the mixture. Once it boils, boil for 2 minutes, while stirring regularly.
Remove from the heat and leave to cook for 5 minutes.
Separate your eggs, place the whites in a bowl for whipping. Add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring each one in well before adding the next.
Pour the mixture into the cooked shortbread base. Smooth out the top.
Meringue topping
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Beat the 3 egg whites until stiff peaks form. You should be able to hold the beaters up and the mixture will not fall over.
Gradually beat in the remaining caster sugar.
Spread the meringue over the top of the lemon filling. You can pipe this, if you feel like it, but it swirls around quite easily without too much effort.
Return the pie to the oven, 200C for about 10 minutes, until the top is light brown.
