This week I’m back joining in with the great bloggers bake off after missing a week to make all the mickey mouse themed birthday party food for my son’s 5th birthday. I decided to make lemon meringue pie because A- my husband loves it B- I’ve never made it before C- I don’t really eat it so it’s good for my diet and D- I was sad to miss out on the Baked Alaskas so wanted to do something with meringue.

I used the same sweet pastry I used last year for my summer fruit meringue pies but changed the meringue recipe a little. I was rushing a little so lost the beautiful peaks in the meringue but overall the pie came out well. I blind baked the case as it was larger than my small summer fruit pies and adapted a Mary Berry recipe for the filling.

We’ve just eaten it for dessert with our tea and it looked pretty good when we cut into it!

This recipe is for  9 inch pie made in a loose bottomed tin.

For the pastry:

125g Plain flour

15g Castor sugar

75g Unsalted butter

1 large egg yolk (keep the egg white for the meringue)

1 tablespoon of cold water

preheated 180c oven

• If you have a blender (which I don’t), just put all the ingredients in and mix.
• Otherwise place the flour and sugar and in a bowl and mix through before rubbing the butter in to create a breadcrumb effect.
• Next beat the egg yolk and mix through with your hands or a wooden spoon.
• Add the water and combine the dough into a ball.
• Knead briefly to ensure the egg yolk has distributed evenly throughout the pastry (no yellow bits).
• Butter your pie tin – with fluted edges I find the best way to stop pastry sticking is to get right in there with your fingers and make sure every bit of the fluting is buttered.
• Roll out the pastry on a floured non-stick surface (I used my fondant mat but greaseproof paper works too) and then flip the pastry onto the pie tin before carefully peeling off the non stick surface.
• Carefully lift and press the pastry into place making sure there are no holes.
• Use a knife to remove excess pastry from the top drawing it outwards so that it pulls the pastry into the walls of the tin rather than away from them.
• Line with grease proof paper over the pastry then fill with baking beans
• Blind bake the pastry in a 180 oven for 15 minutes then remove the baking beans and grease proof paper and bake for a further 5 minutes to brown.

For the lemon filling

This is a very tart filling, if you prefer it sweeter reduce the lemon juice to 3 lemons and add a little extra water instead

Juice and zest from 4 unwaxed lemons100ml water100g castor sugar1 level tablespoon of cornflour4 large egg yolks (beaten)

• Place the sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and  water into a pan and bring to the boil.
• Reduce the heat and whisk in the cornflour until there are no lumps.
• Continue to stir until the mixture thickens.
• Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool slightly to stop the eggs scrambling when they are added.
• Beat the egg yolks and add to the cooled sugar mixture stirring constantly to help mix in evenly and prevent the eggs scrambling. Take back to the heat and cook over a low heat stirring until the mixture has thickened (5 minutes or so). Remove from the heat and leave to one side to cool while you make the meringue.

For the meringue

5 egg whites (1 left over from making the pastry and 4 left over from making the filling).

250g castor sugar

2 teaspoons cornflour

Preheat the oven to 170c

• Whisk the egg whites on a high speed until they form soft peaks
• Add the sugar a spoonful at a time while continuing to mix at a slow speed
• Add the cornflour to make the meringue soft inside
• Pour the lemon filling into the blind baked pastry case
• Pipe or spoon the meringue on top of the lemon filling
• Bake in a 170c oven for 15 minutes until the meringue is crisp on top.