Simplest, Quickest and Tastiest Lemon Meringue Pie

This is another recipe by the magnificent Mary Berry. Lemon meringue pie is classically made with a pastry base, lemon curd and a meringue topping, making it very time consuming and quite technical. Mary has taken the danger out of this pie with a beautiful biscuit-y base and
lemony filling. It was super quick, and is now one of my firm favourites.


Serves 6


Ingredients:
For the base:

• 75g butter, melted
• 25g light brown soft sugar
• 175g digestive biscuits

For the filling:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 x 394g tin of full-fat sweetened condensed milk (DO NOT use LIGHT condensed milk as the filling won't set!)
• Zest and juice of 2 lemons

For the topping:

• 3 egg whites
• 175g caster sugar

Method:


1. First make the base. Crush the digestive biscuits. This can be done in a plastic bag, but I find placing them in a bowl and pressing down with the end of a rolling pin works better (and is less messy). Add the brown sugar and melted butter, and stir to fully combine.

2. Pour into the base of a 23cm round, fluted pie tin (with a removable base). Use the back of a spoon or your knuckles to press the biscuit evenly around the base, and up the sides of the pie tin. Place in the fridge whilst you make the filling.

3. Preheat your oven to 190c/170c fan/gas mark 5.

4. To make the filling pour the condensed milk into a bowl, and add the egg yolks, lemon juice and zest. Beat briefly with a whisk, then pour into the prepared tin.

5. For the meringue topping, place the egg-whites in a grease-free spotlessly clean bowl and whisk (preferably with an electric whisk) until the egg whites start looking like clouds (quite like shaving foam). Start adding the sugar, a teaspoon at at time, whisking well between each addition.

6. Keep whisking until the meringue forms stiff peaks. This means that when the whisk is removed from the mixture a peak of meringue forms (and the tip does not fall to one side).
Place spoonfuls of the meringue on top of the lemon filling, and spread over the pie, making sure to cover all of the filling.

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, turning the tin occasionally (to get an even browning of meringue).

8. Set aside for about 30 minutes, before serving warm (though it is also perfectly delicous cold).

9. Enjoy

Note: This pie keeps in the fridge for at least half a week (our pie was fully devoured after 2 days!)