Lemon Meringue Pie

The film, Toast, is based upon the autobiographical book, Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger, written by English food writer, journalist and broadcaster, Nigel Slater. A young Nigel in 1960s England, who lives on toast until Mrs potter the maid comes into their lives.

Nigel takes up home ec because he wants to win his fathers heart through food like Mrs Potter has done. The first time Nigel is ever praised by his father is in the scone scene. This makes Mrs potter think they are in competition for the fathers love and every time Nigel brings food home she has already made sure the father is feed full.

After Nigel’s father has again been feed by Mrs Potter he goes into the kitchen to try the lemon meringue pie Mrs Potter has made. Asking for the secret, Mrs potter won’t tell him and lets him know he might as well give up. He experiments until he gets the recipe perfect. Nigel perfects the recipe but as usual Mrs Potter has filled his dad up and want even try a mouth full. Mrs potter claims Nigel stole her recipe but he points out mine has peel in it.

We are going to attempt our own lemon meringue pie using Toast’s food stylist, Katharine Tidy’s recipe.

Shortcrust Pastry Directions

Step 1. Sieve 225g flour into a bowl and press the 125g cold butter through your fingers until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Step 2.Gradually add the cold water approx. 2 tablespoons mixing with a knife which helps prevent over working the dough and then your hands until the mixture just comes together. Form a ball and wrap in clingfilm and flatten into around disk.

Step 3. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. This allows the shortcrust pastry to rest and absorb the water we added.

Step 4. Then roll out the pastry and line a 9cm flan case gently lowering the edges of the pastry into the corners.  Make sure to leave some over hang of pastry around the edges to avoid shrinkage in the oven. Then poke with a fork which is called docking the pastry and will help prevent bubbles forming on the pastry during baking.

Step 5 Bake it blind for 10 minutes at 160c. Line with baking paper and fill with rice or dried beans and cook until golden brown 25-30 minutes. The remove the rice from the tart shell.

Step 7 Whisk one egg yolk and brush the inside of the shell making sure to coat all over. This is going to prevent the lemon curd from making the shell soggy later. Place back into the oven for another 10 minutes. While still hot use a knife to cut the edges of the pastry off.

Lemon Curd Filling for the Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Layer Directions:

Step 1 Grate the zest of one lemon remember in the film Nigel makes it a point to Mrs Potter that his meringue uses lemon peel unlike her recipe.

Step 2 Sprinkle 10 grams of gelatine powder into a tablespoon of water leave for a few minutes until it looks spongy.

Step 3 Wipe the bowl and whisk with vinegar then separate the egg whites into one bowl and yolks in another bowl. The egg white will be used later for the meringue.

Step 4. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan except the egg yolks. Bring slowly to the boil, mixing slowly to combine allowing the sugar and corn starch to dissolve and thicken. Once you see bubbles continue mixing for about a minute to make sure the corn-starch has cooked through. Remove from the heat.

Step 5 Whisk the egg yolks gradually to the thick lemon mix. Return to the heat but do not allow to boil.

Step 6 Place bloomed gelatine in the microwave or in a saucepan and slowly heat until the gelatine has melted.

Step 7 Add to the lemon mixture along with yellow food colouring for that real 60s vibes they would put food colouring into everything.

Step 8 Pour into the prebaked flan case and allow it to cool completely. About 2 hours or over night.

Meringue Side Note

With the Meringue the recipe calls for a French meringue method which means you don’t cook the egg whites. I used this method but the egg started to disintegrated. I made another batch and whipped the egg whites longer. I then made my Swiss Meringue because I feel more comfortable cooking my egg whites for eating. But I know that in the 60’s Britten, Swiss meringue method wouldn’t have been a common method for lemon meringue.

French Meringue Directions

Step 1 Whisk the egg whites until thick and you can hold the bowl upside down without the egg whites falling out. Gradually add the sugar.

Step 2 Spread the meringues onto the lemon mix making sure to cover right to the edge then pile the rest of the meringue on top or pipe in a decorative design.

I went to cut the lemon meringue pie, it had already started to turn back into egg white in the bottom of the tart. So my second attempt for the French method I watched Preppy Kitchen and he says to gradually at the sugar when it has formed a small amount of foam on the egg whites. Making sure the sugar is all dissolved then turning the speed up and beating them for a while I did for 10 minutes. As you can see this made the meringue a lot more stable and look when I cut through it. It holds it shape.

Swiss Meringue

But the tart shell was ruined from my first attempt at the French method and I am not that comfortable eating raw egg. So I remade another tart and used Swiss meringue method. A technique I am familiar and it uses cooked egg whites making it a more stable meringue that want disintegrate.

Step 1 This method I used 5 egg whites and 1 cup sugar and heated the mixture to 75 Celsius over a Bain-Marie and whisked the whites until stiff peak.

Spread the mixture of the pie. Giving the dome shape and doing this with my spatula to give peaks all around the dome. I just want to point out how the bubbles in the Swiss Meringue are a lot smaller and closer together giving a more structured meringue.

Toasting the Meringue

Then Bake in the oven at its highest heat for about 5-10 minutes until lightly coloured. Do not take you eyes off the oven for this.

Now to cut into the pie, the meringue taste like marshmallow and the lemon curd filling is the thickest I have found and I love how it uses both cornflour and gelatine to make sure it sets firm to hold its shape for cutting but it also is smooth with just the right amount of tart.

If you want another lemon curd dessert then my surprise inside Marshmallow sugar cookies with passionfruit curd centres will be perfect for you.