Recipe by Jodie Smith

Lemon Meringue Tartlets for Six

Name: Lemon Meringue Tartlets for Six
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 6

Serves6 people

Prep25 min

Cook10 min

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Confiletas Medium Sweet Round Pastry Cases x 6

$9.95

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

Lemon meringue tartlets for six begin with three eggs and a box of pastry cases. The yolks set a stovetop curd, the whites are whipped into a Swiss meringue, and the shells are pre-baked, so nothing is rolled, lined or blind baked. Most of the time in this recipe is the curd sitting in the fridge on its own.

A full lemon meringue pie is a day in three stages, and the stage that takes the longest is the one you can buy. The Confiletas medium sweet round pastry cases are Spanish, pre-baked and shelf stable, 55mm across and six to a box at $9.95. Six cases, six people, no offcuts and no arithmetic.

One carton of eggs, two fillings

Lemon meringue holds together as a single recipe because its two halves want opposite parts of the same egg. Yolk sets the curd, white builds the meringue, and separating three eggs at the start leaves you with exactly enough of each and nothing stranded in a bowl in the fridge. Separate them cold, straight from the carton, because a cold yolk holds its shape and a warm one splits over the shell. Then let the whites come up to room temperature while the curd chills. A speck of yolk in the whites will stop them whipping, and the whites are the half of this you make on the day, after the curd has had its time in the fridge.

Ingredients

Serves 6. Hands-on time is 35 minutes across two sessions, 6 to 8 minutes of it stirring the curd and another 4 to 5 warming the whites over water, with at least two hours in between while the curd sets. The curd comes to about 320g. Six cases at 35g each take 210g of that, so a third of the batch is left over, and it keeps a week in a jar in the fridge.

Lemon curd, made first
3	egg yolks, the whites kept back for the meringue
3 to 4	lemons, finely grated zest of 2, plus 100ml juice
100g	caster sugar
75g	unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1cm cubes
1 pinch	fine salt
Swiss meringue
3	egg whites, about 100g, at room temperature
180g	caster sugar
1 tsp	lemon juice
1 pinch	fine salt
To assemble
6	Confiletas Medium Sweet Round Pastry Cases, one box, 55mm
	finely grated lemon zest, to finish (optional)

Three to four medium lemons give you the 100ml of juice, the zest of two of them is all the curd needs, and that zest has to come off before any lemon is cut. A fine zester takes the yellow and leaves the white pith, which is where the bitterness lives: the Dreamfarm Ozest, in the fine cut, is the one we stock, and the Dreamfarm Fluicer folds flat in a drawer and gets more out of four lemons than a fork and a sieve will. Both are $29.95.

There is no cornflour in this curd, which is a decision about texture rather than about setting. Starch is the standard way to build a full-sized lemon meringue pie and it carries meringue perfectly well, but in a case this small a starch-set filling sits heavy and slightly gluey against the pastry. Yolk and butter set this one instead as it chills, so it goes into the case firm, keeps the mark of a spoon, and carries the meringue without spreading out from under it.

The meringue is Swiss, which means the whites and the sugar are warmed together over water before they are whipped rather than after. The sugar is close to twice the weight of the whites, and that ratio is what makes the finished meringue stiff enough to pipe, stable on a warm afternoon and reliable under a flame. French meringue, whipped cold, is lighter to eat and starts to weep and slump not long after it is piped.

Torch, or grill

A blowtorch is the easy answer: hold it about 10cm away, keep the flame moving in small circles, and stop at a light tan, because the colour carries on developing for a few seconds after the flame leaves.

Without one, run the grill at its highest setting and give it ten minutes to come up properly. Sit the tartlets well spaced on a cold tray, second shelf from the top, and give them 30 to 60 seconds with the door open and your eyes on them throughout, turning the tray once. The pastry rim is the part at risk, sitting only a few millimetres above the curd line, so a collar of foil around each case buys the seconds you need.

Going smaller changes the arithmetic: the 40mm mini sweet cases take two teaspoons of curd each, twelve to a pack, so one batch of this curd fills two packs of them and starts on a third. Every shape in tarts and pastry shells costs the same, so the size you pick is a question about the filling and never about the budget.

For the same lemon without the meringue, the lemon curd and raspberry tartlets use the 40mm case and 15 minutes of hands-on work, and the guide to the Confiletas shells sets out which shape suits which filling.

Method

Separate the three eggs while they are cold. Yolks in a medium bowl, whites in the clean, dry, grease-free bowl you will whip them in later.
Tip the 100g of caster sugar in with the lemon zest and work the two together with your fingertips for half a minute, until the grains clump and go faintly yellow. Lemon flavour lives in the oil in the skin, and this is what moves it into the sugar.
Add the yolks, the 100ml of juice and the salt, and whisk until no streak of yolk shows.
Set a small heavy pan over your lowest heat and work the spatula around the base and the seam of the pan, without stopping, for 6 to 8 minutes. Watch for weight, not colour: the spatula drags, and a stripe pulled across its back stays open. Steam is fine, a bubble is not.
Take the pan off the heat before the butter goes near it. Drop in the cold cubes two or three at a time, letting each lot melt away before more follows. The butter goes in cold on purpose, because it is what sets this curd as it chills.
Sieve it into a cold bowl, lay cling film flat on top so no skin forms, and chill for two hours, minimum. With no starch in it this curd firms in the fridge, not the pan, and a curd still soft will not hold meringue.
Check the cases. Out of a sealed box they are crisp, and if the pack has been open in a humid kitchen, three minutes at 150°C on a dry tray brings the snap back. Cool them completely first.
Spoon two tablespoons of curd into each case, about 35g, and flatten the top. Stop 3mm below the rim, so there is a lip of pastry for the meringue to sit against.
Put the whites, the 180g of caster sugar, the teaspoon of lemon juice and the salt in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, the base of the bowl clear of the water. Whisk steadily for 4 to 5 minutes, until it reads 70 to 75°C on a thermometer and you cannot feel a grain of sugar between finger and thumb.
Take the bowl off the pan and whip on high for 6 to 8 minutes, until the meringue holds a stiff, glossy peak and the outside of the bowl is no longer warm.
Pipe or spoon it on inside the pastry rim, doming it high in the middle, and keep it off the rim itself. Meringue taken over the edge catches the flame first and lifts away from the case as it cools.
Colour the tops with a blowtorch, or for 30 to 60 seconds under a hot grill, then finish with a little more zest and serve within two hours.

What can be made ahead

The curd is the make-ahead half. Sealed in a clean jar it keeps a week in the fridge and freezes for three months; thaw it overnight and whisk it smooth. The cases keep for months in their sealed pack. The meringue will not wait: use it within about 20 minutes of whipping, because once it begins to set at the edge of the bowl it pipes ragged. Finished tartlets hold about two hours on the bench. Keep them out of the fridge, where the meringue beads and the pastry goes damp. The guide to Christmas desserts that hold up in December heat covers what else survives an Australian afternoon.

Questions about lemon meringue tartlets

Why does meringue weep?

Beads of clear syrup on top mean the sugar never fully dissolved, which is what the Swiss method prevents: warming the whites and the sugar together dissolves every grain before the whipping starts. A watery layer underneath means the meringue met something warm or wet, so chill the curd hard and flatten its surface before anything goes on top.

Do you need a blowtorch for lemon meringue tartlets?

No. A hot grill does the same job in under a minute, and the whites were already taken to 70 to 75°C over the simmering water, so the colour is for flavour and looks rather than safety. Left pale it is still a finished dessert, just sweeter, since it is the scorched tips that cut the sugar.

Can you make lemon meringue tartlets the day before?

Make the parts, not the tartlets. Curd in a jar, cases sealed in their pack, eggs separated with the whites covered in the fridge. Assembly then runs about 20 minutes on the day, most of it whipping. Built the night before, they are soft underneath by morning.

A box of six sits in the cupboard until the day you decide to use it. The medium sweet pastry cases are $9.95, the wider Confiletas range runs to five shapes at the one price, and the festive entertaining shelf covers the savoury end of the same table. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.