I remember as a child the infamous brand that is Sara Lee…during the spring and summer seasons, my dad would often light up a BBQ (yes even in England believe it or not- we’re well prepared for the rain so our umbrellas are always ready to shelter the grill!) and on would go a hefty range of meats, fish, veggies, even fruit! My mother was responsible for the sides which meant dessert was least prioritised by both parents!

Not that I’m complaining…we always got a giant serving of none other than Sara Lee’s lemon meringue pie! Occasionally it was the triple chocolate gateux, but the lemon meringue was the preferred option in my family household and it always went down a treat, especially amongst me and my siblings, so much so that my dad would often flip a coin to determine the individual who would be permitted to devour the remaining slice.

As an adult I have ventured far and wide and had my fair share of tastings of lemon meringue pies- may they be bog-standard or fancy-pants style- but, irrespective of this, the Sara Lee version will always be close to my heart with a taste that I will forever deem special. So I’m not sure if I have what it takes to create what Sara Lee did so many years back, but I’ll at least have a good go. Just for a bit of fun, I’ll attempt to do a deconstructed alternative- fingers crossed!

My pie will be comprised of the following:

Biscuit crumb; Lemon curd; Meringue; Charred candied lemon

Lemon curd

To make this tart curd (perfect with almost anything and everything!), in a heatproof bowl placed inside a saucepan half filled with water, combine the juice and zest of 2 lemons, 200g sugar, 50ml rapeseed oil (usually I use butter, but I was clean out and resorted to oil, with very little idea of how the final product would turn out) and heat. Then whisk in 2 eggs and an additional egg yolk and continue to stir until the mixture cooks and thickens. Place in a sterilised jar and refrigerate until required. Turns out it made no difference to replace the butter with oil so I managed to create a dairy-free version in the process.

Meringue

For this wonderfully sticky, creamy/chewy/crispy (depending on how you want it) meringue, whisk 4 egg whites and 1 tsp lemon juice with an electric whisk until stiff, snowy, mountainous peaks form. Keep the whisk running and gradually add 150g caster sugar until a glossy fluff is achieved.

Using a piping bag, pipe a series of blobs of varying sizes onto a baking sheet prepared with greaseproof paper and bake in the oven at 100C for 1.5-2 hours, allowing the meringues to completely cool before storing.

What I noticed about the meringues is that in my kitchen, unless they were stored in an airtight container almost immediately, they started to stick to each other, and to anything in fact, due to the atmospheric humidity. It was extremely challenging plating these buggers particular since they chose to stick to my fingers rather than the bloody plate!

I also kept some meringue aside and instead of baking, I piped directly onto the plate and blowtorched it for the traditional, gooey meringue topping.

Charred candied lemon

For the candied lemon, I boiled lemon slices for 30 minutes in water and then another 30 minutes in sugar syrup. I then left the fruits to dry over 2 days on greaseproof paper and then doused in sugar.
Using my trusty blowtorch, I burnt a slice (and satisfying it was!) and placed it intricately atop the curd.

Biscuit crumb

I would normally make a digestive biscuit crumb base, but I wanted to keep things simple so I just prepared a basic biscuit base by combining together 200g butter, 200g plain flour, 125g sugar, 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Once kneaded into a stable dough and rolled out, I created rounds using a cookie cutter and then baked at 180C for 15 minutes.

I then stuck in a food processor and blitzed into crumbs.