I tend to make Lemon Meringue Pie when my sister visits, so it is some time since I last made one. Maybe I have made it just the once in between, but it took me ages to psych myself up to make another one, and realised that it was not having the exact details of some of the small things to hand.
One thing I dithered over was the size of the tin to use, for my future reference it is the smaller of the deep fluted Silverwood flan tins the one measuring about 20cm.
Remembering just how good Clive Mellum's pastry was, I opted for this again but could not recall how much as required, so went ahead and made 300g of flour up, but I have pastry to spare, and using 200g flour, 100g butter, 50g caster sugar, and 25g beaten egg, will be sufficient for this tin size. I did think that using plain organic flour would be good, but the pastry was far too short and difficult to roll without it breaking up. Clive's recipe is partly to demonstrate how technique affects how flour behaves, and all his recipes including the pastry one does use strong flour, and therefore when I made this again, it will have to be with strong white flour.
My second quandary was regarding the lemon filling and meringue on the top. I couldn't remember which book I took it from, and checked various ones, but lemon meringue pie is not in many of the more up to date books I have, but I did find a good one in Leiths Baking Bible, p 116. The curd was easy to make and the meringue included an unusual addition of a cooked cornflour paste.
The proof in is in the pudding, and between our friends Colin and Julie, we made a very good indent with a piece small enough to have for a late snack for Mr S. The meringue held very well for the day and did not weep.
No comments:
Post a Comment