This Easy Lemon Meringue Pie is now my go-to recipe. I have tried and tested and tweaked many recipes, this is the one we like. It has just the right amount of sweetness and I have taken the zesty sourness up a notch.

The Easy Lemon Meringue can be made with a crumb crust or a shortcrust casing. The choice is yours. For me, it all depends on how much time I have.

How to make a crumb crust.

To make a crumb crust or a cookie crust as some people will call it, is probably the easiest way to do it. In fact, the biggest job is to process the crumbs with a food processor. So to save me time, I have made enough cookie crumbs for two more lemon meringue pies, it lasts for months in the freezer. I use a variety of cookies, depending on the flavour of the pie that I want to bake. Ginger biscuits, vanilla biscuits, chocolate biscuits if I am making the White Chocolate Cheesecake.

How to make Short Crust Pastry.

Shortcrust Pastry can be either sweet or savory, all depending on what filling you intend using! You can learn all the tricks to make the perfect shortcrust pastry, here.

For the lemon meringue pie, I prefer the shortcrust pastry, I also do not add sugar to the pastry. The salty, buttery taste from the pastry crust is ideal to bring relief from the overly sweet filling.

So let’s get to the important part of this pie: the filling and the beautiful toasted meringue topping.

Easy Lemon Meringue Pie

makes 1 x 23 cm pie

Ingredients

For the Pastry

Ingredients

250 g cake flour

125 g cold butter or margerine – cut in small cubes (use Gordon Bleu or Spar brand)

2 ml salt

1 egg yolk

10 ml lemon juice

12.5 – 25 ml ice water

Method

Prepare a 23 cm deep tart dish by spraying it with non-stick spray. Mix all the dry ingredients. Add the ice cold butter cubes. Use your fingertips en rub the spread into the flour until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Mix the egg yolk with the water and lemon juice. Add to the dry ingredients and mix until the pastry comes together in a ball. Rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Spray the baking dish with non-stick spray. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to about 3-4 mm thick. Line the base with baking paper and fill with rice or baking beans. Bake for about 10 min. Remove the rice and bake, prick the pastry with a fork and bake the crust for another 5 minutes. Cool the crust.

For the lemon filling 

Ingredients

4 eggs – separated, keep the egg whites for the meringue topping

2 x 375 g condensed milk

juice of about 5 lemons

zest of 1 lemon

For the meringue topping

4 egg whites

1 t cream of tartar

200 ml caster sugar

Method

In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, condensed milk, lemon juice and zest of 1 lemon. Make sure you have no lumps of pieces of egg yolk in the filling. Pour into the mixture into the pie crust and bake for 8 – 10 minutes. The filling must still have a slight jiggle in the middle.

For the Meringue Topping

While the meringue is baking, place the egg white is a pristine clean glass bowl, because any impurities will prevent  the egg whites from whipping to stiff peaks. or the bowl of your standmixer. Start whipping th egg whites. As soon as it starts to froth, add the cream of tartar. Whip until stiff, while adding the caster sugar little- by-little with a good whip between each addition. Spoon onto the pie and place back in the oven for 5 minutes to brown the meringue, I prefer the blow torch as it give the meringue that toasted marshmallow taste.

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