6 October 2007

Lemon pie recipe

LOL, I didn't expect so many would want this recipe. I'll give it to you next week. Just joking. ; ) Here it is. Be warned, it's a calorie bomb, but it tastes good.

SHORTCRUST PASTRY
2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
¼ cup icing sugar
150 grams (5.2oz) cold butter
1 egg yolk - keep the white for the meringue top
cold water - between 2 to 4 tablespoons - the amount you use will depend on your flour and the amount of humidity in the air.

Place flour, icing sugar and butter in your food processor and mix until the butter has been incorporated into the flour. Add the egg yolk and mix in for 3 seconds. With the processor going, pour cold water into the shute. Start with 2 tablespoons straight in, and then drizzle in a little more if needed. You don't want to over process. As soon as the pastry comes away from the sides and forms a ball, it's ready. Take it out, put it in a bowl with a damp cloth over the top and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes. This allows it to relax. If you used it straight away your pastry would be tough and it would shrink while cooking.

After 15 minutes, take the dough out of the fridge, and on a lightly floured bench, flatten it out so you can roll it with a lightly floured rolling pin. Try to roll it into a circle. Roll it, turn it a quarter circle, roll, turn a quarter circle, roll, turn until you have it the thickness needed for pastry. The pastry is deleicate at the point so be careful. Get your rolling pin and gently place it at the side of the dough. Now roll the pastry around the pin so it's wrapped around your rolling pin. Place the pastry gently over your greased tin and roll it out over the tin. shape the pastry into the tin, making sure it's neat and into all corners. Cut the top off so it fits the tin perfectly. Keep the pastry off cuts as you can make a few biscuits/cookies from it.

Put the uncooked pastry in the freezer for 10 minutes before you cook it. This is important.

With a fork, prick the bottom of the flan a lot. This allows the pie shell to cook without rising. If you have some dried beans you could also place a piece of bake paper over the base and add the beans - the weight of the beans would stop the pastry from rising. I just prink the bottom and check that it's not rising while it's cooking. If it rises a bit, prick it some more and flatten it with your fork.

A lot of people are scared of making pastry, don't be. It's a simple process if you remember to use cold butter and water and keep it as cool as possible during the making. Pastry doesn't work if it's too hot or you use warm ingredients. Placing it in the fridge and freezer also helps a lot.

Cook on 180C until it's light brown. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool slightly (or a lot if you have time).

FILLING
350 grams cream cheese
1 can condensed milk or make your own from the recipe here. I made my own.
½ cup fresh lemon juice

Mix this all in your processor until it's smooth. The lemon juice helps it to set. Taste it before adding it to the pie base. You might need to add more juice. You could also add one passionfruit at this stage if you wanted to. When the filling is to your liking, put it in the pie base and smooth it out.

TOPPING
Whisk two egg whites with two tablespoons of sugar and a slurp of white vinegar until they're stiff and form peaks. Add that to the top of your pie and run your fork through it to form peaks.

Cook in 180C oven until the top is golden.

Please note that the other egg yolk may be frozen in a small plastic bag. Eggs freeze quite well. You just need to seperate the yolks from the whites.
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1 comment

  1. Thank you Rhonda- It will be a great sweet for the week-end!! Sharon

    ReplyDelete

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