Lemon Meringue Pie

Now I actually have a good reason for the pause in blogging: vacation. For the whole of July we were almost everywhere but home and I have not baked or cooked a lot. Besides, the weather has been so hot and humid (and unlike Finland) that even the thought of a hot oven has convinced me to stay put near the fan and not to heat up the already too warm an apartment even more. But now we are back in the normal course of life and it's even a little bit cooler (although not a lot) and we hosted a meeting for our Bible Study group last night so I decided to bake something, and deal with the consequences of a hot oven.

During our vacation, my husband and I together with his parents spend two weeks in the State of Washington, USA to visit some newly found family of my father-in-law. Therefore, I found it only proper that the first recipe I blog after that trip is something typically American. I took this recipe from a cook book that I got for last Christmas called Maailman ihanimmat leivonnaiset (The world's most wonderful pastries). It is a Finnish cook book put together by a couple of journalists from the Finnish food magazine Maku (Taste). This was the first recipe which I tried from the book, although the wonderful pictures have drawn me to browse it through a number of times before. As this recipe is probably known to my readers across the Atlantic, I will give the recipe as it is in the book i.e. in metric measurements.

I really loved the combination of the little sour lemon pudding and the sweet fluffiness of the meringue. This is the first time I did this pie myself and I'm sure it's not the last. This was fairly easy and quick too, and not difficult to make it gluten-free, if you just use gluten-free flour.

Lemon Meringue Pie

about 10 pieces

Crust:
100 g butter
3 dl flour
2 tbs sugar
½ tsp baking powder
1 tbs water

Filling:
1½ dl sugar
2 dl water
1 dl lemon juice
2½ tbs corn starch
4 egg yolks
50 g butter
1 tbs vanilla sugar

Meringue:
4 egg whites
1½ dl sugar

Line the springform pan (about 24 cm in diameter) with a baking parchment. Grease and flour the pan.
Make the crust. Mix the dry ingredients with the room-temperatured butter. Then add the water and squeeze the dough to an even texture. Press the crust on the bottom and on the sides of the pan. Put the pan in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 200 C. Put another piece of parchment of top of the dough in the pan and pour about 3 dl of dry peas, beans or rice. Press the parchment a little bit so that it stays on properly.
Bake it with the weight for 15 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven. Then take the weight off and bake for another 5 minutes.

When the pie crust is in the oven, make the filling. Measure all the ingredients except the butter and the vanilla sugar into a saucepan. Whisk continuously while the mix heats up until it thickens and starts to boil. Take the pan off the heat, add the butter and vanilla sugar while whisking.

Whisk the egg whites in a clean dry bowl until it is properly foamy. Add the sugar little by little. Continue to whisk until the foam is hard and glossy.

Pour the lemon filling on top of the pie crust and even. Spoon the meringue on top and make little waves in it. Bake the pie for another 10 minutes until the meringue is golden.

The pie is at its best just after cooling down.

Print this post

Apple tart with meringue

Autumn is a time for apples. As I a) had earlier made jam from apples, b) had only heard stories of apple pies made by other people and c) came across with a delicious looking recipe in the magazine I subscribe, the decision to bake something out of apples became reality on Saturday.


Base:
100 g of baking margarine
1 dl of sugar
2 egg yolks
200 g of Valio's apple-cinnamon flavored curd
3 dl of flour
2 tsp of baking powder

Filling: 850 g (4 big) of apples
1 tbl od lemon juice (I didn't have any, so I left it out)
1 dl of sugar
1 tbl of flour
2 tsp of cinnamon

Meringue:
2 eggwhites
2 tbl of sugar

Foam the margarine and sugar lightly. Whisk in the egg yolks. Add the curd and flour-baking powder mix. Mix the base smooth, fast. Use flour in your hand to spread the base onto the bottom and sides of a pie dish, diameter 27-28 cm. Place the pie dish in the fridge.

Peel the apples if necessary. Remove the cores and slice or dice the apples. Put the apple pieces and the other filling ingredients to a sauce pan. Let them simmer stirring occasionally for about 7 minutes on low heat. Let cool a little. Check the sweetness of the filling, use sugar according to the sourness of the apples. Pour the filling into the pie dish. Bake in 200 C for about 18 minutes.

Whisk the eggwhites into a hard foam. Add the sugar little by little. Whisk until the mix is shiny and stays in the bowl even when it's upside down. Spread the meringue on top of the filling. Put back into the over for about 6-7 minutes more.



It was yummy, I served the tart with caramel sauce, which complemented the flavors incredibly well.

Print this post

Strawberry pie topped with meringue

My friend invited my husband and I to celebrate her birthday and in the invitation email it was mentioned that guests can by all means include something yummy on the table. Because of our very plentiful strawberry supply I wanted to bake something out of them. The discuss forum at the Martha Organization website helped me once again. Although I have not made meringue since being a teenager I wanted to try out this easy recipe. I used oil instead of butter and gluten-free flour instead of regular. I also used whole frozen strawberries but you can use fresh berries or pieces of frozen berries as well. Also fruit pieces could work well here.

Base:

1 dl of cooking oil
1 dl of sugar
1 egg yolk
1 egg
2 dl of flour (I used gluten-gree, as mentioned)
1 tsp of baking powder
½ tsp of cardamom
½ dl of milk

Topping:

1 eggwhite
¾ dl of sugar
ca. 3-4 dl of whole frozen strawberries
ca. ½ tsp of vanilla sugar

almond chips on top

Prepare the meringue first so that the base does not have to wait. Beat eggwhite and sugar into a thick foam. You might want to add the sugar little by little, but I didn't.

Stir oil and sugar together. (If you use softened butter, you should beat the butter and sugar into a foam.) Add the egg and the egg yolk and beat. Mix up the dry ingredients and add to the foam mixture together with the milk. Stir only so much that everything mixes together.

Pour the base into a greased pie dish. Add the strawberries and vanilla sugar into the meringue foam and stir. Pour the mixture on top of the pie base and spread it evenly with a fork. Sprinkle almond chips on top. Bake for 35-40 minutes on the lowest rack in 175 C.

Print this post