Luxurious Lemon Meringue Pie

 I adore Lemon Meringue Pie. The lemonier the better!

I use two large lemons in my recipe but you can use more or less, depending on the size of your lemons.

Ingredients

Pastry

225g plain GF flour

110g packet butter

pinch salt

1 egg

2 tbsp water (add a little more, or less, if need be)

2 large lemons

2 eggs

275g caster sugar

125ml water

1 tbsp cornflour

10g butter

Preheat the oven to 180ºc 

In a food blender whizz up your flour and butter (cut up into cubes before you place in the blender) to look like breadcrumbs. Place the mixture in a bowl and add the egg and water and then mix with a knife until it starts to stick together. Finally, bring it together with your hands into a ball and wrap in clingfilm and then place in the fridge for an hour to rest.

Take out your pastry and let it warm for around 20 minutes to make it easier to work with. Cut the ball in half and put the other half back in the fridge. You can freeze this half to make another one another time. It'll keep in the fridge for a couple of days, or a couple of months in the freezer.

Roll out the pastry and carefully line your loose bottomed flan dish. Prick the pastry base all over and then bake it blind in the oven for around 15 minutes

Take the pastry out to cool and reduce the oven temperature down to 150ºc

Separate the eggs, reserving the whites for the meringue in separate bowl

Mix in a bowl, the egg yolks, 100g of caster sugar and the cornflour and the rind of the lemon

Add in a little of the cold water to make a paste

In a pan, place the remaining water with the juice of the two lemons and heat over a low heat. Pour over the paste and then return the mixture to the heat and stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

Remove from the heat and add 10g of butter, then mix in the two egg yolks. Return to the heat and heat gently for thirty seconds longer.

Remove from the heat and then cool before pouring into the pastry case.

Whisk the egg whites until they are thick, fluffy and stand in peaks, then gently add the remaining caster sugar, one spoonful at a time until it is fully combined and the mixture is silky, smooth and thick enough to stand in peaks.

Spread it evenly across the lemon and then pop into the oven and bake for a further hour and a half.