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Jeanette's Cakes

Lemon Meringue Pie

Rich Short-crust Pastry

Ingredients:

175ml all purpose flour

175ml self-raising flour

1ml Salt

80g chilled diced butter

75ml Sugar

1 egg

5 ml cold water

5 ml Lemon juice

Method:

  • Sift the flours and salt together in a large bowl
  • Add the sugar to the flour
  • Cut the diced butter into the flour using a knife
  • Rub the pieces of butter into the flour using your hands – lift your hands up while doing this to aerate the flour mixture and until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs
  • Shake the bowl so that any large lumps come to the surface and rub them in
  • Mix the water and the lemon juice and the egg together
  • Add liquid to the flour mixture and stir in quickly with fork. When the dough starts to cling together, use the fingers of your one hand to gather the dough into a ball
  • Sprinkle in more liquid if necessary to dampen any remaining dry mixture in the bowl and use the ball to gather up any remaining crumbs
  • Place the pastry on a lightly floured surface and knead it lightly by turning and pressing with floured heel of hand until smooth
  • Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes
  • Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and flatten it into a round shape,
  • Lightly flour a rolling pin and roll out the pastry, lifting and turning over frequently. Lightly flour the surface as needed to prevent the dough sticking to the work surface
  • Line a greased pastry shell and chill for 15 min before baking
  • Place some beans in the lined pastry shell to prevent the pastry from lifting up during baking – this method is called baking blind
  • Bake at 180 C for 15 min

or you can use a Cookie Crumble Crust

1 3/4 cup ground cookie (like Maria Biscuits/ Graham Cookies/ Biscoff Cookes or any similar type of cookie

75ml (5 tablespoons)  melted butter

30ml (2 tablespoons) Sugar

5ml Cinnamon (optional)

  • chop the cookies in your food processor till the mixture is fine
  • place the cookie crumbs in a 2l bowl and add the butter, sugar and spices
  • mix with s spatula or fork till the crumbs look like wet beach sand
  • press the cookie crumbs into your pie pan, tart shell or individual tart shells (the crust should be about 7mm thick)
  • bake the crust for 5 minutes at 320F or 165C , remove from the oven and let it cool off
  • fill the shell with your lemon curd filling

Lemon Curd:

4 egg yolks

170ml sugar

45ml cake flour

juice of 3 lemons

90ml water

Fill you saucepan 1/3 with water and bring to a boil.

  • Place your mixing bowl on top
  • Mix your egg yolks, sugar, flour and lemon rind in the top of the stainless steel mixing bowl
  • Gradually stir in the lemon juice and water
  • Cook, stirring constantly, over boiling water until the mixture is smooth and thick. Cool and pour into pie shell.
  • For faster cooking use your microwave oven (3 – 5 minutes depending on microwave oven strength) the mixture should look like a thick custard and have a glossy sheen to it)

Meringue:

4 egg whites

Pinch of cream of Tartar

75ml Sugar

Method:

  • Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until thick and fluffy in the bowl of your mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment
  • Gradually beat in the the sugar, a little at a time, beating until the mixture is thick and glossy and the sugar is dissolved

Spread the mixture over filling in the baked pie shell

Bake in a preheated moderate oven of 180 C – 350F for 8 – 10 minutes or until the meringue is golden.