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
See more of Sarah Akhurst ’s recipes
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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What is the best way to prevent having liquid at the bottom of a lemon meringue pie? Don't over bake 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.
Let's avoid a soggy pie crust: Start by reviewing how we blind bake pie crust. You want to partially blind bake the crust because it will continue to bake when you bake the assembled lemon meringue pie. Watch me blind bake the crust I use for this lemon meringue pie in my separate post on how to blind bake pie crust.
Our Test Kitchen recommends following the recipe, beating, and baking as written. The watery layer between the meringue and the filling (weeping) is usually caused by undercooking.
Yes, lemon meringue pie should be refrigerated. To prevent foodborne illness, never let it sit at room temperature for more than two hours. To store lemon meringue pie without messing up the meringue, place two toothpicks in the pie. Loosely cover it with storage wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to two days.
Refrigeration makes meringue weep more quickly, so let the pie stand at room temperature in a draft-free spot before serving it. After a few hours, however, it will need to be refrigerated. ''If the meringue is cooked before being added to the pie, it will be more stable and less likely to weep.
Make sure you're spreading your meringue over a hot — not cooled — pie filling. Otherwise, your meringue will bake on top, but the cooled pie filling won't get hot enough to cook the meringue on its bottom in the short 15 to 20 minutes needed to bake a meringue.
Some cooks sprinkle a fine layer of cake crumbs on the hot filling, then top it with the meringue. The crumbs absorb any accumulating moisture, and the meringue clings to the filling.
You can't overbeat meringue - It's true! You can't ruin it by mixing too much, so once all of the sugar is added, be sure that your meringue is glossy and that you have super firm, stiff peaks when you remove the beater from the mixer. Don't be afraid to mix a little longer if it appears too soft.
While sugar helps stabilize those whipped egg whites as you beat more air into it, there's still a risk of collapse. Cream of tartar is an added safeguard; it gives more stability to that foam structure, therefore setting up your meringue for success.
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.
The pie crust can be cooked and stored (in the pie tin) in an airtight container (or zipper-style bag) up to two days before. The assembled Lemon Meringue Pie will keep a few days in the fridge, but the meringue and/or the lemon filling will begin to weep. It is best eaten the day it is assembled.
As the meringue is not baked for long the sugar in the meringue absorbs moisture, turns into syrup and tends to leak, or weep, out of the meringue. Beading can sometimes be caused by the meringue being overcooked, so you may need to reduce the oven temperature.
As the meringue is not baked for long the sugar in the meringue absorbs moisture, turns into syrup and tends to leak, or weep, out of the meringue. Beading can sometimes be caused by the meringue being overcooked, so you may need to reduce the oven temperature.
When liquid accumulates between the meringue and pie filling, the meringue is said to weep. This occurs because the meringue was spread on a cool filling. To avoid this, always spread the meringue on a hot filling. Beading—brown droplets on the surface of the meringue—may occur if the meringue is overcooked.
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Prep time: 35 min
