got lemons? go fishing!

This is the second part of Young-Man-Catching Sunday Afternoon Dinner. Lemon Meringue Pie was the young-man-catching dessert that ended Mrs. Townsend's dinner. 

'After the second slice he was ready to follow her to the Sahara Desert'

There's something about good food that can make you so happy and vulnerable. I see how this pie can do that. There's a reason why the Lemon Meringue Pie so popular. Sour and sweet go great together. I've made this before with not much luck I'm afraid. I started with a shortcrust pastry dough but the recipe for the base of this pie was not in the book. 'One 23cm/9in ready-baked shortcrust pastry case' was listed as an ingredient and i always find it a bit ridiculous when recipe books do that. It's very easy to find almost anything ready-to-use in America but what if you live in a country that doesn't have most things conveniently available to you or you'd simply like to make everything from scratch with ingredients you know? I found a recipe online and i'm going to share it. It's a basic and really simple dough to make and that makes me wonder how hard it would have been for them to include that in the book.

225g plain flour
100g butter, diced
pinch salt
2-3tbsp cold water

Sift flour into a large bowl, add diced butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 

Add water and mix to a dough

Knead the dough briefly and gently on a floured surface. 

Wrap in cling film while preparing filling. 

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After a little while in the fridge I gently rolled out the short crust pastry, lined a baking dish and blind baked. Blind baking is the process of baking a pie crust without the filling. This is helpful when you're making a pie that requires no baking or in this case a pie where the filling needs less baking time than the pie crust.  Blind baking also helps avoid a soggy bottom due to wet fillings. Baking beans are a great tool in pie making. They weigh down the pastry to avoid air bubble and to retain the shape of the pie when blind baking. Mine are ceramic but rice, beans or lentils can be used instead. 

Blind bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown then remove baking beans and leave to cool.

blind baking with baking beads

In the top part of a double boiler, i mixed sugar, cornflour, salt, hot water and then added bread crumbs, stirring till smooth and thickened. I beat egg yolks, combine with mixure then finally added butter, lemon rind and lemon juice. This is the first time i've made bread crumbs, it was really easy. I used the small sized side of the grater and grated a few slices of bread without the crust.

bread crumbs

For the meringue topping, i whisked egg whites and salt by hand until frothy. I didn't realise how unequipped i was till i started this project. I run a bakery and have a fully stocked professional kitchen but it turns out i don't do a lot of baking at home. I've had to buy a few tools lately and still need a few more things, a mixer being at the top of my list. Doing this by hand was quite a workout. I whisked in sugar till it was stiff but still silky smooth and baked for 10 minutes. 

  

It tasted delicious but the filling was runny again. I think the amount of water the recipe called for was too much and i need to learn to follow my instincts a bit more. I had a feeling it was too much but i'm a stickler for rules and following instructions. Always bear in mind that ingredients may vary from one brand to the other and that will affect the final product so don't just follow instructions, sometimes make the rules as you go along. The filling was served over the meringue topping and pie crust base like a kind of tarty lemon syrup and i enjoyed it very much regardless of my failure to achieve a set filling. 

I'd love to share the story and all the 'Young-Man-Catching Sunday Afternoon Dinner' recipes with you. Let me know if you'd like it and i'd be happy to send them to you by email. I hope you have better luck with them!