- Hey guys, today we are
making a lemon merengue tart which is one of my favorite things to make in the spring time. They're fairly easy to do, and you can make the whole thing the night
before which is even better. Let me show you how to make it. So the first thing we're
gonna do is prepare our crust. So in the bowl of a food processor we're gonna add a cup and a
quarter of all purpose flour. Two tablespoons of powdered sugar. I like to use powdered
sugar for this tart dough because I find you'll get a
really nice, lighter texture with the powdered sugar
than regular sugar. And a quarter teaspoon of salt. You can pulse that up until
everything is combined, then we're slowly gonna add a half a cup of chilled butter that
you've diced into cubes. Pulsing all the while
until a coarse meal forms. Then you're gonna whisk together one egg yolk and two
tablespoons of ice water. Then you're gonna add that mixture to your food processor while pulsing. Just keep pulsing away, and eventually it'll start to come together as a dough. You wanna keep going until you get a nice dough ball forming. Then you can take it out,
flatten it into a disc and then wrap it up and refrigerate. Now you do wanna refrigerate this for at least 30 minutes to an hour, just because it will really help with the shrinkage of the dough. If you bake it too soon,
your dough starts to shrink and then it can be really hard
to blind bake at the point. Then to roll out our dough, we're gonna be using the French style rolling pin from J.K. Adams that came
in my May subscription box. You'll see how beautifully
the dough rolls out and it just becomes so much easier and lighter to use, I find,
than a traditional rolling pin. If you're not familiar
with the subscription box and you wanna know more about it, we're now taking
subscriptions for the July box so I will leave you a
link in the description and you can get caught up. Then you can fit it into
your tin, trim those edges. Then you wanna take a fork
and pierce the bottom of it, just to allow the steam to escape. Because we've been
working with this dough, and it's probably come
up to room temperature, it's a good idea to just
pop your tin in the freezer for 30 minutes, just to
become nice and firm. Then when it is time to bake, you're gonna take your tart tin, then take a piece of parchment paper, put
that on top of your tart. Then I like to use baking beads which you can find online, but you could also use dry beans or rice just to weight that paper down. Then we're gonna bake our shell at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, just until it's set and
slightly golden brown. Then you can allow the shell to cool, and we'll get to work on the filling. The filling is super simple to do. So in a large bowl, you're gonna add six egg yolks, a third
of a cup of corn starch, and a quarter teaspoon of salt. You wanna whisk that all together until a nice pale yellow paste forms, then you can set that aside. Then meanwhile, in a saucepan, you wanna add a cup and a half of water and three quarters cup of sugar. You wanna heat that on medium low, just until that sugar dissolves, and you have a nice, clear liquid. While our sugar is melting, we can prepare our lemon zest and juice. So we're gonna use our Talisman Design lemon zester and reamer, another product that came in the subscription box. And just, you wanna zest the entire lemon. So usually get about a teaspoon or so. Then you wanna cut the lemon in half, and then you're gonna ream it. We're looking for a third
of a cup of lemon juice. So you may need two
lemons to get that much. Then you're gonna go
back to your sugar water. And you're slowly gonna add just a little bit at first
into that egg mixture. So we wanna temper those eggs, make sure we don't scramble them. Then you can add the
rest of the sugar water. Then this mixture is gonna
go back into your saucepan. You're gonna cook it on medium low, stirring all the while,
just until it thickens. I think it's best to stir it with a whisk. Just kind of keep it
going, keep it moving. And once it starts to thicken up and coat the back of a spoon, you know that it's good to go. Then we're going to add our
lemon zest and lemon juice. Now our filling is all ready to go. So we're gonna pour this filling
into our baked pie shell. You just kinda wanna smooth
it out and level it out. Then you can place this
in the refrigerator while we prepare the merengue. Then to make the merengue,
it's also really easy. All we're gonna do, in a saucepan, is add a third of a cup of water, and one and a half cups
of plain white sugar. You wanna heat that on medium high, just until all of that sugar dissolves. Then once it boils for
about three to four minutes and becomes syrupy, that's
when you wanna take it off. At that point, you wanna set
it aside to cool slightly. Then in a bowl of an electric mixer, you're going to add four egg whites and a half a teaspoon of cream of tartar. The cream of tartar is gonna help us to stabilize the egg whites, which is a good thing to do so that
they don't fall on us. If you can't find cream of tartar, you could also use a half
teaspoon of fresh lemon juice. Then you're gonna beat this up on high until you start to see nice,
soft peaks begin to form. Then you're slowly gonna
add our sugar syrup, just in a steady stream,
whipping all the while until they becoming nice
and stiff and glossy. That's what you're going for, and once you reach that
stage, you can stop the mixer. Then we're gonna get our
pie out of the fridge. And we are going to place this
beautiful merengue on top. I just pile it all on there. Now if you wanted to be really decorative, you could also put this in a pastry bag and pipe some nice little dollops, but I don't know, I
think there's something really sweet about the rustic approach. Then at this stage, I do think it's easier to us a kitchen torch, to be honest. They're not that intimidating, and it is a lot easier to kind of get an even browning
with a kitchen torch. But you could also put this
tart under the broiler as well. Then once your tart is
all nice and golden brown, you can place this in the
refrigerator until ready to serve. All right you guys, I'll see
you back here next Saturday with another quick and easy recipe. Until then, bye!
