Lemon Meringue Pie (G)

Once I had baked my lemon curd cupcakes, I was stuck with extra lemon curd, as well as egg whites. That same weekend my brother had his birthday party, so he asked me to bake a cake. I decided that a lemon meringue pie would be perfect.

The curd recipe can be found from my lemon curd cupcake recipe, with the only difference that I thinckened the curd with one extra tbs of potato flour. This is easily done by heating up the curd and add potato flour that has been pre-mixed in some water. Let it simmer until it thickens.

Then I make the meringue by whipping the eggwhites (in this case 4 was left over) hard, and adding powdered sugar. I don't want the meringue too sweet, so for me about 3tbs is enough. If you want more sweetness, just add more powdered sugar. The meringue is done once you can turn the entire bowl of  whipped eggwhites upside down without it falling out of the bowl.

For the piecrust, I made it gluten free and I would call it a semi-failed attempt ;)

Pie crust

150gr butter

3dl Semper Mix gluten free flour

1tbs water

1tbs sugar

I made the dough by mixing it all together by hand. Apparently keeping the dough cold is key, so the heat from my hand kinda made it too soft --> Next time I'll use a food processor. Still at this point the texture was fine though. I let it sit in the fridge for about 20min (apparently 1h is minimum, but I was on a schedual). It was easy enough to put in the pan. Then came the problem with all gluten free pie crusts: Pre-heating. ARGH!

I pre cooked the crust for 10min in the oven, it completely sunk together. I learned fast that when pre-heating a gluten free crust you should always put a bag of dry beans or something as weight. It makes the crust keep its form. Well, what to do when the party is in 30min and I'm the only one baking the cake. And it's Sunday, and I'm all out of flour. Right. No time to panic.

My solution was actually suprisingly effective. I waited for the crust to cool down to about 38C,  warmer than room temp, but not hot. At that temp the texture isn't set, so I just re formed the sunken pastry to fit the pan. To my surprise, it worked! After this I filled my crust with the curd, topped it with the meringue and cooked it in the oven at 100C until the meringue started to turn brown on top.

I let the pie cool down, and brought it to my brothers party. I was a little anxious about how it was going to turn out, and it was great! I've made another pie crust that was gluten free, and better in texture. I had unfortunately forgot the recipe to that one.. I'll post it here when I remember ;)

So all in all, if you bake it with wheat flour, this dough is great. If you bake it with gluten free - you can make it work, but I felt the texture wasn't perfect.