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.