Tips For A Better Meringue Pie.

These tips were emailed to me yesterday, hope they help solve some of your problems with your meringues.

Many thanks to who emailed me.

"Troubleshooting Meringue - If you have a problem with meringue, follow one of these suggestions for solving it:

Weeping - When water seeps between the filling and the meringue, the pie is weeping. This is caused by spreading the meringue over a cool filling, which prevents the meringue from baking completely. Solution: Make sure the filling is hot, even boiling, before pouring it into the pie shell. Immediately spread the meringue over the filling. The hot filling will begin to cook the meringue from the bottom, ensuring even cooking throughout.

Beading - This happens when water droplets form tiny beads on the surface of the meringue. It's caused by over-baking the meringue. When egg whites bake too long, they begin to tighten, squeezing out little drops of moisture. Over-baking also produces a tough meringue. Solution: Bake meringues just until they are light brown and dry to the touch. Egg whites need to be cooked to 160 degrees F. but not so long that they are overdone.

Shrinkage - Meringues may shrink during baking, separating from the crust. This is caused by the meringue not clinging to the crust. Solution: Make sure the meringue is spread over the filling and touches the crust around the entire edge; do not leave any openings around the pie.

Limp or soggy - Humidity affects a meringue's texture. Damp, humid days may cause it to be limp and sticky. Solution: Ideally, meringues should be made on dry days. The cornstarch mixture used in these recipes helps them hold up under humid conditions, but to ensure success, plan to bake when it is less humid. "

technorati tags: eggs, lemons, desserts, meringue

Lemon Meringue Pie.

Lots of lemons can be seen in people's backyards hanging from the trees. Home grown lemons are great for desserts, spreads and anything else you can find in a recipe book or passed down through your family.

My lemon tree is still too young to produce lemons. But I am able to source them out from friends.

Today I made a lemon meringue pie. Thought I'd post the recipe here. With photos of my pie, before it was eaten.





Pastry:

2 cups plain flour
pinch salt
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
185 g (6 oz.) butter/margarine
1 to 2 tablespoons water.

Lemon Filling:

4 tablespoons plain flour
4 tablespoons cornflour
3/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups water
90 g (3 oz.) butter/margarine
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
4 egg-yokes

Meringue:

4 egg-whites
2 tablespoons water
pinch salt
3/4 cup castor sugar (I use normal sugar)


Pastry.

Sift flour, salt & icing sugar into basin, rub butter into dry ingredients. Add lemon juice & sufficient water to combine ingredients. Press dough into a smooth ball, chill 30 mins.

Roll out onto lightly floured surface until large enough to fit 20 cm or 23 cm pie plate. Press firmly down into the plate. Do not stretch the pastry, as this can cause shrinking during baking. Prick base and sides throughly with a fork. This will stop pastry rising during cooking.

Bake in moderately hot oven 10 to 15 min, or until golden brown. Set aside until cold.

Spread cold lemon filling into cold pastry case, top with meringue.

Spread meringue to edge of pastry case to form a complete seal.

Bake in moderate oven 5 to 10 mins, or until lightly brown.



Filling:

Combine sugar and sifted flours in saucepan. Stir in combined lemon juice & water gradually; add lemon rind.
Place over medium heat, stir constantly until mixture boils & thickens. Its important that the mixture boils. Reduce heat, stir for further 2 mins.

Remove from heat, add butter/margarine and lightly beaten egg-yokes; stir, off heat, until butter is melted, set aside until cool.



Meringue:

Combine egg-white, water & salt in small basin of electric mixer, beat on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beat until sugar is dissolved.




Enjoy

Resource: The Australian Woman's Weekly. Great dessert cookbook.

technorati tags: eggs, lemons, desserts

Fishy Tale

Tonight for tea, I had a surprise for Pat. Rainbow trout, grilled with a fresh side salad.



Not all of the salad is from our vegie patch. But the fish is true blue Aussie.

Those fish shops at the market give a great range of Aussie caught fish and good prices. This little fella was $13.99 a kilo and it set me back $5.10.

We have also started to buy marinated whole chickens for roasting from a butcher in the markets. Bigger than the stupidmarket ones they sell and only costing $6.00. This will easily feed 4 people or in our case a hot meal and then a cold meal with salads.

Also pork chops are a better price as well. Plus a bigger size than some of scrawny loin chops that are sold in stupidmarkets.

Start looking outside your stupidmarkets for cheaper meats.....its worth the look round.



Someone asked me ....."Why do you call them stupidmarkets"?


I answered with...."What is so super about them"?????


He laughed and said that made a lot of sense and he liked my reasoning.

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: chicken, leafy greens, salads, fish