These little bites have such a vibrant colour and taste – the lemon zing is perfectly sharp, sitting on top of a crumbly, buttery shortbread base and balanced by a silky smooth meringue topping, mmm…
This recipe is from Butter Baking, a baking blog which I am obsessed with! Everything that Natasha makes looks delicious and I will definitely be using more of her recipes after trailing this one!
I hope you give this recipe a go, it’s such a nice summertime bake!
Ingredients:
- 215g plain flour
- 170g butter, softened
- 55g icing sugar
- 70g plain flour
- 450g caster sugar (A lot, I know…)
- 250ml of freshly squeezed lemon juice – roughly 3 large lemons
- zest from 1 large lemon
- 6 eggs + 1 egg yolk (I used 5 large eggs and the recipe was still perfect!)
- 100g caster sugar
- 70g egg white – approx. 2 eggs
- pinch of salt
Method:
- Grease and line a 8 x 8 inch square pan with baking parchment or grease-proof paper
- For your shortbread base, place all of your ingredients into a large bowl. Using your fingers, lightly rub the butter into your dry ingredients as if you were making a crumble topping. The base is ready when a dough is formed
- Press your dough into the base of the pan and up the sides, roughly 3/4 of the way up.
- Place a piece of baking parchment on top of your crust, and fill the pan with baking beans. Pop into the oven for 20-25 mins, until golden around the edges
- To make your filling, put your flour, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a large bowl and mix to dissolve the huge pile of sugar!
- Whisk together your eggs and the extra egg yolk along with a pinch of salt in a separate bowl, and then pour the mixture into your large bowl of sugar and lemon juice. Mix.
- Pour the lemon filling into your pie crust (make sure to remove the baking beans first!). Place back into the oven and bake at 150°C for 30-40 mins, until the filling looks firm but with a slight wobble!
- Leave to cool to room temperature, and then set in the fridge for a few hours
- To make your meringue, (THIS IS A GUARANTEED PERFECT MERINGUE ❤ ) Place your caster sugar, egg white and salt in a heat proof bowl and put your bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk your egg whites continuously until the mixture reaches 60°C on a sugar thermometer. Remove from the heat, and place onto a normal work surface
- Whisk your meringue using a hand held whisk/ free standing mixer (with a whisk attachment) until stiff peaks are formed! (Check out my photo below – as a test, you should be able to hold the meringue bowl upside down, on top of your head without the meringue moving at all – good luck 🙂 )
- Finally, pipe your meringue onto your lemon meringue slices in any style you like! I then blow torched my meringue until golden brown!
- EAT, mmmm!
Lots of Love,
Sofia xxxxxx ❤ ❤ ❤
sofiabakes.com 