LEMON MERINGUE PIE

This cake has been a mystery to me. However, I have found myself drawn by its elegance and lemon flavour – not really a popular taste in Poland. It suits wintertime as well – there are not too many fruits, except for apples, oranges and lemons. I finally plucked up my courage and made this enigmatic beautiful cake. It tastes great and has instantly become one of my favourite pies.

I have one dilemma, though. Why add eggs to the lemon cream? I prepared both a version with eggs and one without them. It turns out that, at least in my opinion, the eggs are not necessary. They do not change a lot as far as taste is concerned, maybe it gets slightly more lemon, but the sweetness of the meringue balances it perfectly. I offered the eggless, unclassic version to my English colleague and she was not insulted. In fact, she even praised it! So, we could just as easily prepare the cream without eggs. There is one problem here – once we use the yolks to prepare the cream, the whites go for the meringue. Otherwise we are left with yolks and have to put them to some purpose… Nevertheless, both version work and are recommended. I just personally am not a big fan of eggs, period.

I did make the pie a couple of times and now consider it a slammer – effective, not too well known (original in Poland at least) and really tasty! The mix of slightly sour lemon cream, meringue and short-crust is a bull’s-eye-hit.

The first version of the recipe is taken from the blog “Moje wypieki,” but – as I already mentioned – I altered the way lemon cream is prepared. I make short-crust otherwise, too, stealing this time from my brother’s wife, because she makes the world’s best short-crust!

One great advantage of this pie is that it can be prepared in advance – you can even freeze the short-crust. The lemon cream can be stored up to a week, so they say. It is the meringue itself that needs to be done at the end. You have to put it in the oven earlier, so that the pie can cool down. I read somewhere that it is recommended to eat the pie on the same day it was made, but I am usually left with some little bit for the next day and trust me – it tastes good.

*recipe*

crust:

175 g coarse-grained wheat flour (an ordinary wheat would do as well, but the coarse-grained one is better for that purpose)

100 g of butter, chopped into little pieces

yolk – save the whites for the mreingue

a pinch of salt

a bit of sugar, to your own taste (optionally)

lemon cream:

125 ml of lemon juice (from ca. 3 lemons)

lemon zest (from 2 lemons)

85 g of butter

100 g of sugar

juice from 1 orange

2 flat tablespoons of potato flour

3 yolks and 1 egg

(though, as I was mentioned earlier, the cream without eggs is good, too)

meringue:

4 whites (normal temperature)

200 g fine-grained sugar

2 flat tablespoons of potato flour

***

Prepare the crust of the tart by kneading the flour with butter and egg. You can cool it down, wrapped in foil or aluminium, in the fridge for some 15 minutes. Fill the bottom of the baking tin (ca. 21 cm in diameter), which should be greased with butter. Pierce the dough with a fork so that no bubbles emerge during baking. Cover it up with baking paper and put some beans or peas so that the pie does not fall during baking.

Bake for 15-20 minutes in 180° C. You can remove the paper then and bake some more but be careful not to overdo it!

***

In order to prepare the lemon cream, take a small pot and mix sugar, lemon peels, flour and lemon juice. Mix the orange juice with water so as to obtain 200 ml of it and pour into the pot. Stir and cook until the mixture thickens. Take it off the heat, add pieces of butter and stir until smooth.

If you wish to add the eggs, put the cream off the heat, add the yolks and the egg, stir and rehear. However, makes sure not to boil it! The cream has to be smooth and you have to watch out so that it does not come off in the form of scrambled eggs!

Pour the cream over the cold crust. Cool everything before putting on top.

***

To prepare the meringue whip the egg whites (they should be in normal temperature) to obtain a thick froth. Add sugar slowly, spoon after spoon, constantly stirring. Finally, add the potato flour and mix everything until the cream is smooth.

***

Put the meringue over the cold cream. Bake in 180° C for ca. 20 minutes.

The meringue can be formed into various shapes but be careful not to burn it, especially when it has longer, frayed ends. The meringue should be crispy on top and frothy inside, which makes it very nice.

Cool the pie before serving.