Ahhhh lemon and meringue.... is there anything better?

This yummy pie is made with frozen pre-made dough. If you have the time (and patience) a self made dough will absolutely do as well, but here I was aiming for convenience and quickness :) Different countries have their own pre-made flaky dough, so please check the cooking guides on the packet and adjust if needed. Here in Finland, the dough is sold in rectangular dough disks, which need to be merged together for this pie.

I also have a recipe for an amazing flaky pastry, let me know if you want to see that in the future!

Pro tip!

Make sure your dough is melted all the way and soft when you start working with it.

For the pie to turn out beautiful and flat on the bottom, you need to push the dough together at the bottom of your tart pan to merge together the butter layers. But be careful not to do that on the sides so that you can see those beautiful buttery layers after cooking! Using a fork will work perfectly for this.

Another pro tip is to cook the pie at the lower half of your oven and with the upper and lower heat setting on (no fan!). This way you can be sure that the bottom pastry under the lemon curd cooks properly.

For this recipe you will need:

A ⌀22cm tart form
A small sauce pan
A small bowl
A whisk
A silicone spatula
An electric hand mixer
A blow torch

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Flaky lemon meringue pie

⌀22cm tart form

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Pastry

4 sheets of pre-made flaky pastry (or what ever you have available in your country!)

On a well buttered tart form, start to adjust the flaky pastry. If you use sheets of pastry like I do in the photos, let the pastry overlap each other just a little (0.5-1cm) so that you can press them together later. Push the pastry gently from the corners. If you are left with a gap in some areas, cut out excess pastry to fill those areas with. Be careful not to press the dough too much on the sides - we want to keep those buttery layers so that the end result is flaky and crisp.

Using a knife, cut the excess pastry from the sides. Let the dough come all the way to the sides because it may shrink in the oven.

Start to press the bottom with your fingers. I also used a fork to press down the bottom of the pie dough. This is done to merge the butter layers with the dough so that we only get flaky edges but the bottom of the pie is smooth.

Clean off the edges of your tart. Push the two pastry sheets together with your fingers and a fork where needed to make sure everything is well merged together. Try not to push the pastry on the sides of the dish too much however, only at the areas where two sheets need to be stuck together. Set the pie dough into the fridge to wait for filling.

At this point you can preheat your oven to 210 degrees celsius.

Lemon curd

55g lemon juice
50g sugar
3 egg yolks
50g butter
pinch of salt

Cook the lemon juice and sugar in a small sauce pan until boiling. In a separate bowl, whisk 3 egg yolks.

Add 1/3 of the hot sugar and lemon juice mixture into the bowl with the eggs and mix together quickly.

Pour the egg yolk mixture into the sauce pan with the remaining sugar and lemon juice mixture. Whisk well. Put on medium heat and keep on mixing all the time.

Once the mixture starts to thicken, add a pinch of salt and the butter. Whisk on low heat until the butter has melted and you have a thickened curd.

Take the pie crust out of the oven. Pour the lemon curd onto the pie and spread with a spatula.

Cook at the lower half of the oven for 20-22 minutes or until golden brown. Make sure you use upper and lower heat, not the fan.

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Meringue

3 egg whites
100g sugar

Add the whites and the sugar into a medium sized bowl (steel or glass bowl, or something that is heat resistant).

Add some water into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Set the bowl with the egg whites and sugar on top of the sauce pan and start whisking the egg whites.

Whisk until the sugar has dissolved into the egg whites. You can easily test this by dipping a finger into the mixture and rubbing it between your fingers - you should not feel any grains of sugar left in the meringue.

Once the sugar has dissolved, take the bowl off the water bath and whisk with an electric mixer or stand mixer until the meringue is no longer warm and you have achieved stiff peaks. You can also test whether the meringue is ready by tilting the bowl - the meringue should hold its shape and not fall out.

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Assembly

Once your tart has come out of the oven, the curd will be elevated and bubbly. Let the tart cool down completely.

Once cooled, add the meringue on top of the curd but leave the sides with the flaky pastry showing. Using a blow torch, burn the meringue on top until golden brown.

Serve and enjoy <3