Pavlovas with Meyer Lemon Curd and Fresh Berries
It seems that the warm summery weather we experienced two weeks ago was just a cruel, cruel joke. Not funny Boston. Not at all.
Over a month ago, when the weather was much like it has been the last week (dark… gloomy… wet… depressing…), I was using happy meyer lemons to substitute for the absent SUN, and I made these pavlovas and a meyer lemon curd. They were fun, light and bright, and rather uncharacteristic for me since they weren’t a cookie and didn’t have a crust! Pavlovas are meringues that are crispy on the outside, but fluffy and marshmallow-y inside, a textural dream. The tart lemon curd is rich and lemony; a little goes a long way because the pavlovas and whipped cream are just ever so lightly sweetened. Now that the berries are really coming into season and I’ve taken a peek at the 10 day forecast (more un-summer-like weather), I think I should make these again SOON!
For those that hate wasting anything in the kitchen like me (it’s my asian-ness), you’ll be happy to see that the number of egg WHITES in the pavlovas corresponds exactly to the number of egg YOLKS needed for the lemon curd… serendipity! I was left with quite a bit of lemon curd left over- which would seem to pose another kitchen conundrum- but stay tuned for how my resourcefulness prevailed!
Lemon Meringue Pie
I baked this pie. For someone that I love.
And then while putting away two leftover mini-pies, I masterfully managed to DROP them both. On my leg, on its way to the kitchen floor. Meringue does not come out of cotton easily. Smooth, I know.
Lemon Meringue Pie
from America’s Test Ktichen’s Baked Illustrated
This recipe was interesting for a two reasons:
- The pie crust involved an extra step of rolling it out in graham cracker crumbs… this is to prevent soggyness from custard-y fillings. I found that though the recipe claimed you would not taste the graham crackers, I still could, and would omit them next time and just risk having a soggy crust.
- Both the lemon curd and meringue topping involved a heated cornstarch, sugar, water mixture.. which I found strange as many other recipes I’ve seen previously do not include this in either the curd or meringue. When heated, the mixture becomes a snotty consistency in which you either add eggs to for the curd, or becomes added to the meringue. For the curd, adding the eggs to heated “snot” resulted in some uneven cooking of the eggs, resulting in some small chunks of cooked egg solids (think egg drop soup, but like.. maybe only 5% of the mixture) instead of a completely homogenous filling. Addition of the lemon juice, zest, and butter did help to hide this somewhat, but the future, I would use another lemon curd recipe that did not use this step. For the meringue, the “snot” did not totally combine into the meringue, so I found it to be totally unnecessary, except if its purpose was to stress me out.
I halved the recipe to make 3 small pies in mini tart pans.
Pie Dough for Pre-baked Pie Shell (for 1 single 9 inch pie)
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
4 tablespoons butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
4 tablespoons ice-cold water
4 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs, for rolling out the dough to coat the shell
- Mix the flour, sugar, salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter and shortening until the mixture becomes the texture of coarse sand.
- Sprinkle water over the mixture and with a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Use only enough water so that the dough sticks together briefly when squeezed.
- Flatten the dough into a 4 inch disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling.
- Sprinkle the work surface with 2 tablespoons of graham cracker crumbs, and the 2 remaining crumbs on the dough itself, so that the crumbs will coat the dough while rolling out. Roll until size desired for the pie. Carefully ease dough into pie plate, gentle pressing into the pan bottom. Trim the dough edges to extend about 1/2 inch beyond the edge of the pan, and fold the overhang under itself. Refrigerate the dough-lined pie plate until firm 40 mintues, then freeze 20 minutes.
- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line pie dough with aluminum foil and distribute pie weights (or uncooked beans or rice ) into the pan. Bake about 25-30 minutes until the dough looks dry and is light in color. Remove the foil and weights and continue to bake the crust until light golden brown, an additional 5-6 minutes.
Lemon Filling
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
6 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon grated zest
1/2 cup lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water in a large nonreactive pan. Bring mixture to a simmer over medium heat, whisking frequently as the mixture begins to thicken.
- When the mixture begins to simmer and turns translucent, whisk in the egg yolks, 2 at a time.
- Whisk in the zest, then the lemon juice, and finally the butter. Bring the mixture to a good simmer, whisking constantly.
- Remove from heat, place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the filling to keep it hot and prevent a skin from forming.
Meringue
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Mix the cornstarch with the water in a small saucepan; bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally at the beginning and more frequently as the mixture thickens. When the mixture starts to simmer and turns translucent, remove from the heat.
- Mix the cream of tartar and sugar together. Beat the egg whites and vanilla until frothy. Beat in the sugar mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time until the sugar is incorporated and the mixture forms soft peaks.
- Add the cornstarch mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time; beat until the meringue forms stiff peaks.
Assembling the pie
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Warm up lemon filling (remove the plastic wrap) on low heat during the last minute or so of beating the meringue to ensure the filling is hot. (the hot filling will cook the meringue from the bottom up in addition to the oven cooking the outside of the meringue)
- Pour the hot filling into the pie shell. Using a rubber spatula, immediately distribute the meringue evenly around the endge and then the center of the pie to keep it from sinking into the filling. Make sure the meringue attaches to the piecrust to prevent shrinking.
- Bake pie until meringue is golden brown- about 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Best when served the day of.
