White Wings Lemon Meringue Pie

I confess that my biggest cravings are always for a piece of Lemon Meringue Pie. But, unfortunately it always seems to be a craving which remains unsatisfied no matter how simple or extravagant the attempted fix is.

So when I saw the White Wings Lemon Meringue Pie packaging on the supermarket shelf, I thought "why not?"

The required ingredients for the mix were far fewer than I had expected: One egg (separated), water. That's it. The mixture comes in three parts: the base, the lemon filling, the meringue topping.

The 2 and half tablespoons of water added to the base mixture seems very sparse, and the dough is quite tough to work with. In hindsight, I think I would prefer to make my own shortcrust base if I were to make the pie again. Nevertheless, there was enough base to adequately fill the Pyrex dish. The base was refrigerated.

The lemon mixture, with egg yolk and water, was quick to bind and gave a strong aroma of lemon essence. It would be a nice modification to add some lime juice and zest as recommended on the packaging. The filling was baked for only 30 minutes at 170 degrees (my oven is rather hot and quick.)

As the filled pie was removed from the oven to cool, the meringue mixture was combined with the egg white and water as required. The meringue came together very quickly and formed nice solid peaks. There was more than sufficient mix to completely cover the pie with a nice central dome.

Since the oven was still exceptionally hot, the meringue took on colour within around 7 minutes and baked through very evenly.

Taste result: a very nice lemon meringue pie for eating on the day of baking and the subsequent day. However, the base would not allow for keeping any longer than that - it began to taste plastic like and was quite tough.

 

p.s. I have no idea why Blogger isn't uploading my photos in saved rotation - I apologise for the requirement to tilt your head!