Winter Citrus Meringue Pie

By Ben Lippett

Ingredients

  • For the Pastry

    235g Plain Flour 

    90g Icing Sugar, plus a little extra or dusting

    40g Ground Almonds 

    2g Fine Sea Salt 

    120g Unsalted butter, very cold 

    1 Medium Egg

  • For the Citrus Custard

    180g Citrus Juice (Lemon, Lime, Blood Orange) 

    15g Citrus Zest (Lemon, Lime, Blood Orange)

    280g Double Cream 

    240g Caster Sugar 

    100g Whole Egg (roughly 2 medium) 

    220g Egg Yolk (roughly 11, save one white) 

    ½ Tsp Fine Sea Salt

  • For the Italian Meringue

    200g Egg White 

    400g Caster Sugar

Method

Start by making the pastry. Add the flour, sugar, almonds and salt to a bowl and mix to combine. Dice the cold butter and add to the bowl. Using your fingertips, carefully rub the butter into the flour until it has a breadcrumb like consistency. If you have a stand mixer, you can use the paddle attachment to complete this step. Once the mixture is fine and there are no visible chunks of butter left, add the beaten egg and bring everything together into a dough. Don’t be afraid of giving it a brief knead, folks say you need to be super delicate with pastry but at this stage your goal is homogeny. Make sure the pastry is a consistent texture throughout, it’ll pay off later. Wrap and rest the pastry in the fridge for at least 30 mins, up to overnight. 

Whilst the pastry rests, make the citrus custard. Add the juice, zest and cream to a small saucepan and heat to just below a simmer. Add the sugar, whole egg and yolks to a medium mixing bowl and vigorously whisk together. Pour the hot citrus cream over the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Add the salt and then pass the whole lot through a sieve into a jug. Allow to rest for 20 minutes before skimming off any foam. 

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Remove your pastry from the fridge and unwrap. Dust your work surface with flour and begin rolling out the pastry. You want a rough circle big enough to line the tart that is about the thickness of a pound coin, if you can’t manage that thin, don’t worry, anything south of 1 cm is perfect. Pop your 24 cm tart tin in the middle of the disc and leave enough pastry around the edge for a good overhang, trim any excess. You want to work quite quickly here. If your pastry warms up too much, it’ll be hard to handle. If you think everything is getting a bit too warm, just pause and fridge it for 10 minutes. 

Roll the pastry around the rolling pin and carefully lay into the tart tin and encourage the pastry into the corners of the tin. Leave lots of overhang but keep everything snug to the tin. Scrunch up some baking paper and line the pastry. Tip in enough baking beans, dried beans or rice to weigh everything down then slide into the oven for 20-25 minutes. Once the edges of the pastry are starting to take on colour and the kitchen smells like biscuits, whip the tart case out the oven.

Remove the paper and baking beans, drop the temperature to 160°C and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes until the base of the tart is a dark nut brown. Remove from the oven and brush the interior of the tart with egg white. If you’ve got any holes or cracks in your pastry at this point, use some excess pastry to plug it! Once your pastry is golden brown all over and egg-white water-proofed, use a serrated knife to trim away any excess pastry and tidy up the edges. Drop the oven temperature to 120°C. Pop the tart in the oven and with the oven door open, carefully pour the custard base into the case. Fill to the very top and carefully slide into the oven. If you have a blowtorch, briefly kiss the surface of the custard with the flame to remove any big bubbles. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the centre of the custard has the slightest wobble. Once you’ve hit this point, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. 

To make the meringue, tip the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Add the sugar and water to a small saucepan and set over a medium heat. Bring to a boil and slowly bring up to 119°C. As the syrup comes up to about 110°C, whip the whites on medium-high speed until they’re just reaching soft peaks. Once the syrup reaches temperature, decrease the whisk speed to medium-low and drizzle the hot syrup into the egg whites. Once fully incorporated, crank up the speed to max and whip until the whites are at room temperature and hold a stiff peak. 

Remove the cooled tart from the tin and top with the Italian meringue. Use a blowtorch to toast the meringue, cut into slices with a warm, clean knife, and serve.