If you find Christmas pudding too heavy after a traditional roast, this clementine meringue pie is the perfect solution for the big day. Buttery shortcrust pastry is filled with a zingy citrus curd and then topped with pillows of soft meringue for the lightest of desserts
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
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Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
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Ingredients
175g plain flour, plus extra to dust
100g cold unsalted butter, diced
30g icing sugar
1 medium egg yolk
For the clementine filling
50g cornflour
150g golden caster sugar
zest of 8 clementines, plus 250ml clementine juice
50ml lemon juice
4 medium egg yolks (reserve the whites for the meringue)
50g unsalted butter, diced
For the meringue topping
4 medium egg whites
2 tsp cornflour
180g caster sugar
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Prep to the end of step 3 up to 2 days ahead; keep the clementine filling in the fridge and the pastry case in an airtight container. Continue from step 4, up to 4 hours before serving. Best eaten on the day of baking.
For the pastry, put the flour in a food processor with the diced butter and blitz to a crumb-like texture. Add the icing sugar and pulse again, then add the egg yolk plus 1 tablespoon of cold water and blitz until the pastry comes together into a ball. Shape into a disc, wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6 and roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Line a deep 20cm diameter tart tin with the pastry, pressing in well and trimming the edges. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes. Line the tart case with crumpled baking paper, fill with baking beans and blind bake for 20 minutes. Remove the baking beans and paper and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes or until the pastry has completely dried out and is golden. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
For the filling, put the cornflour, caster sugar, clementine zest and juice and the lemon juice in a pan. Whisk to combine, then heat over a low heat until simmering. Simmer until the mixture has thickened, then cook it for 2-3 minutes more while whisking continuously. Add the egg yolks and butter and continue to whisk until thick, then remove from the heat. Set aside and cover loosely with clingfilm pressed onto the surface. Leave to cool to room temperature.
To finish, preheat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas 2. Whisk the clementine filling again until smooth, then pile it into the tart case and level out with a spatula or the back of a spoon. For the topping, put the egg whites in a large clean bowl and whisk to stiff peaks. Add the cornflour and continue to whisk, before adding the sugar a spoonful at a time, whisking well between each addition.
Pile the meringue on top of the pie filling, pulling to get exaggerated peaks, and making sure the clementine filling is sealed in by the meringue at the edges. You could pipe the meringue with a plain nozzle if you want more defined peaks. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 30 minutes – 1 hour. Release from the tart tin to serve.
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I'm not sure what recipes you're using, but I'd suggest that the reason it slides is that a skin has formed on top of the curd, which prevents the meringue from sticking. A shiny skin behaves almost like a non-stick pan because there is nothing for the meringue to hold on to.
How do you keep lemon meringue pie from getting soggy? It's important to blind bake the crust (partially bake the crust without the filling) before adding the lemon filling and meringue, otherwise you'll have a soggy crust.
Meringue pies will ''weep'' water because of the interaction between the filling and the whipped meringue. If one or the other is overcooked, water beads will form and weep.
Why Meringue Pies Weep. As it turns out, undercooking and overcooking can both cause weeping meringue and unwanted moisture on top of your pie (aka beading). Overcooking meringue causes those little sugary drops of moisture on top of baked meringues.
If the meringue is swirled onto a cool filling and baked, steam in the reheating filling just reaches the meringue. As the pie cools, the steam condenses to form the sweet weeping (sometimes a pool) under the meringue.
Make meringue pie on dry, low-humidity days. Don't overbake your meringue! Overbaking causes the egg whites to shrink and squeeze out small droplets of moisture. Always make sure to check on your pie at the minimum baking time.
A: Meringues can be so problematic because they are foams made with egg whites, which are mostly water and particularly sensitive to heat. Make sure you're spreading your meringue over a hot — not cooled — pie filling.
Why does liquid come out of my lemon meringue pie? It's called weeping and it's totally normal. Weeping can be caused by two things: overcooking the meringue or undercooking the lemon filling. Both of these things cause liquid to seep out from under the meringue and run down the sides of the pie.
Avoid storing the pie outside of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours. Once you've served a few slices of the pie, return the remaining pieces to the refrigerator to prevent bacteria growth. Never leave the pie sitting at room temperature for long periods of time.
It can be made with any sugar. One cup of superfine sugar or packed brown sugar is equal to 1 cup of granulated sugar; 1-3/4 cups powdered sugar equals 1 cup granulated. Superfine sugar may dissolve more readily and produce a smoother glossier meringue, but volume will not be as great.
Water is leaking from the beaten whites (they're 87% water), pooling between the filling and the meringue, and dripping down the sides to the crust. The cause? While the meringue cooks on top when it is put into a hot oven, there isn't sufficient time for the meringue to cook on the bottom.
Acid. Whether it be vinegar, lemon juice, cream of tartar, or a combination, an acid will greatly improve the structure of meringue. Acid not only helps meringue whip up and aerate more quickly, it also keeps it stable. Without acid, meringue is more likely to collapse either during or after mixing.
The bottom line: For smooth, stiff beaten egg whites that keep their shape, don't skip the cream of tartar. If you don't have cream of tartar, substituting 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar per egg white works almost as well. To avoid meringues that weep, don't skip the cream of tartar...
Over whip the egg whites and you risk making them too firm and they will risk losing the moisture that they hold. This will affect your meringue's crispness, as well as making it more likely to collapse or weep beads of sugar. As my meringue guru Gary Mehigan advises: “If you over whip the egg whites you cannot fix it.
Like, many times. If you slice this too early, the lemon filling will spill out and separate. You'll have a soupy mess that pools underneath the crust. Be sure the bottom of the pie pan is cool to the touch before you cut into it.
A mild acid will help give your meringue more volume and structure, which means they will inflate more fully and hold the air longer. You don't need much: about 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar for every two to three egg whites should do the trick. You can also use lemon juice.
If the meringue is a lot flatter after baking then it is possible that the egg whites were whisked too much. The extra air expands in the oven and can overstretch the cells of whisked egg white, causing them to break and the meringue to collapse.
Introduction: My name is Lakeisha Bayer VM, I am a brainy, kind, enchanting, healthy, lovely, clean, witty person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 35 min
