Lemon Meringue & Lemon Brulee Pie

Jerome is organising a BBQ in his house today, so I have decided to make some desserts to bring over.
I never make attempt on meringue tart, so today I made a large lemon tart with meringue on top.

Thought there will be 15 pack, so I made 2 tart pies which the other one is Lemon Brulee Tart.

With shortcrust pastry, I dont use the recipe from website as
I have experience that somehow they dont work properly or you can say its of a bad recipe.
The recipe that I tried from website last time results in very bad texture, cant even roll it nicely, it breaks when I am trying to lift it to the tart case.

The best ratio I have used is :
 flour:butter:sugar = 3:2:1


I am using 300g flour + 200g butter+ 100g sugar and 2 medium eggs. Always adjust the amount of eggs and flour if the dough if too dry or sticky.

Of course, there's lots of way of doing it. And I prefer cream butter and sugar method.
This is what I get, nice and soft dough.

Before using, I slightly flatten it in a disc shape and wrap it in cling wrap, chill it for half an hour in fridge.
If you have bigger amount, them divide it to 2 or more so that would be easy when you work on it later.
And definitely need lesser time in fridge before the next step.

A MUST step: dust you bench, dough and rolling pin with some flour to prevent sticking.

Around 0.5-1 cm thickness would be great, you don't want thin pastry that gonna break when you lift it or thick pastry that result in slow cooking and bad eating texture.
Make sure you roll in evenly.

Next step is tricky, lifting the rolled dough onto your tart case.
Usually I lift it with my rolling pin, it always depends on the room temperature and the dough I can say.
After you did this, fit the dough into your tart case gently but firmly, trim off any excess part around the edges with a small knife.

This is what you get ^^

Put them back into the fridge before the blind making for around 20 mins.

Then, pock with holes by using fork or knife, this is to allow air escaping.

Put on your baking sheet and tart weight, then its ready to bake in preheated oven.
I do take it out from oven after 15-20 minutes, remove from tart case and blind bake for another 10 minutes again, just to make sure the pastry is cooked well and evenly.
It kinda hard to get out the one with rectangle tart case though :( almost break it

I am having 2 different recipe for the filling of the tart, basically they are almost the same, both lemon based.
I don't why I make 2 recipes, should have used one recipe for both.

Out from oven, firm to touch on the middle indicates that its done!

You can see, the tart is still remain in the case, this is because its very hard to get it out.
And when its hot, its gonna break easily because of the long rectangle shape.
So I didnt risk it.
I cool both of them in the fridge until they cool down completely before any further steps.

Meringue, just some egg whites and sugar.
I mix it until hard peak though, for easy piping and firm looking.

The most exciting part! hehehehehehehe

DONE ^^ AND ENJOY!

I hope the people like it. You can keep them in fridge or at room temperature prior to serving, the meringue gonna stay for at least 1 day :)


I am very Happy with what I did today, another valuable lesson for me :)