lemon meringue pie

Anyone that knows me well will tell you I am a sucker for meringue based desserts, especially when it's paired with sharp citrus flavours.. and my absolute favourite has to be the classic lemon meringue topped with fluffy swiss meringue that's lightly torched giving it a slight crisp finish.

Making my own lemon meringue pie has been on my baking bucket list for such a long while, and since I made some Lemon curd to gift at Christmas this year, it was the perfect chance to make one whilst I actually had every ingredient at hand.

To make a 9 inch round pie you will need

1 batch of my Sweet short crust pastry

Lemon curd*

For the swiss meringue topping:

300g caster sugar

6 egg whites

Pinch of salt

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

• Preheat your oven to 180c ( fan)

• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to about 1/2       an inch thick

• Line a 9"/23cm loose bottom tart tin with the pastry, and place in the fridge to chill for about 15 minutes

• Line the pastry case with baking paper, and fill with baking    beans/ dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the        oven, remove the paper and beans.

• Place back in the oven for about 5- 8 minutes or until the          case is lightly golden all over. Remove from the oven and set    aside

• To make the swiss meringue topping, place all the            ingredients in a bowl, and place the bowl over a ban marie      ( a bowl of simmering water)  and stir together until the sugar has completely melted, and the temperature reaches 71c.

• Remove from the heat and with an electric whisk or free standing mixer, whisk the egg whites until thick and fluffy, they should hold their shape and form stiff peaks.

• Pour the lemon curd into the cooled pastry case* making sure it's level and smooth.

• Spread the swiss meringue all over the top of the curd, ensuring it is all covered, use the back of a spoon to make peaks all over.

• Use a blowtorch to lighlty torch the meringue all over, alternativley, place under your grill - but stay close as it will brown quite quickly.

• Carefully remove from the tart tin and serve.

* For the lemon curd i used my home made curd, but you can always use shop bought, i filled the tart with the curd almost to the top of the case- i left about 1/2 gap for the merigue topping

To make mini lemon pies, cut out 12 circles using a cookie cutter just slightly larger than the holes .. line each hole with with a pastry circle,  add 2 tsp of curd into each case .. pop in the fridge for 15 mins 

Bake for 8-10 mins until the pastry is lightly golden. Leave to completely cool before finishing off with the meringue topping 

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Following on from my Mince meat recipe, here is my recipe for my quick, easy but delicious mince pies ..

The amount for the pastry will make a batch of 12, so of you're wanting to make more just double up on the pastry ingredients.

With the mincemeat you'll have plenty left over from just 12 pies but you can always store any left over in the fridge

 For the pastry bases you will need 1 batch of my Sweet short crust pastry and a batch of my mince meat


• Start by lightly flouring your work surface, roll out the pastry to about the thickness of a £1 coin

• Using a pastry cutter slightly bigger than the holes in the cupcake tin, cut ot 12 rounds. Gently press each round into the tin holes

• Fill each case with 1 - 1 1/2 tsp with the mincemeat

• Use any left over pastry to either cut out shapes and place them on top of each pie, or make cut out lids to place on top.

• If you top your mince pies with lids, brush the edges with a little water and seal together  by pressing together  with a fork and poke a small hole in the top to help the steam escape.

• Brush the lids/shapes with a little egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 200c/180c fan for 18- 20 minutes or until golden brown

• Leave to cool slightly  before transferring to a wire rack to cool, and and lightly dust with icing sugar before serving

Thanks Sharon

Now i know i don't celebrate christmas but it doesnt mean i can't indulge in all the foods that are a classic and guaranteed to make an appearance at this time of year.

Growing up I always thought that mince pies had actual mince in them - please tell me i am not alone in this - and because we never ate them at home or knew anyone in my family or friends that liked them, i never bothered to investigate what they actually were.


Fast forward to the first time trying  mince pie in school after discovering the actual contents, I found that i didn't like them at all. Every year since then I've tried to force myself into liking them and it just made me dislike them more ever time.

Thank the lord for my amazing friend Sharon who brought her home made mince pies to work last year, i geared myself up to try one since she promised they tasted nothing like shop bought ones, and boy was I amazed at how delicious they were.

So from trying a home made one I knew i had to make my own version. I wasted no time whatsoever and found myself indulging in making as many mince pies as possible and handing them out left right and centre.

So to make my home made mincemeat for mince pies you will need:

170g currants,
          raisins
          sultanas
          dried cranberries
100g mixed peel
1 small cooking apple, peeled and chopped
100g butter
25g vegetable suet
115g soft light brown muscavado sugar
95g soft dark brown muscavado sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice

          ground Nutmeg
100ml orange juice

             apple juice
Zest of 1 lemon

• Start by placing all the dried fruit into a bowl along with the cinnamon, mixed spice and both fruit juices. Stir till well incorprated and leave to soak over night - i normally mix mine up early evening and leave till the next evening before cooking

• When ready to cook, take your soaked fruit along with the rest of the ingredients into a heavy based pan, and on a medium heat stir everything together until the butter and sugar completely melt

• Bring the mixture to boiling point on a high heat, then lower the heat completely and leave to simmer until the mixture has thickened slighty, and the fruit juices have reduced.

• Leave to completley cool, and use to make up mince pies using a batch of my Sweet short crust pastry You'll need about 250g of mince meat to make 12 mince pies.

Store any left over mince meat in sterilised jars and keep in the fridge for up to 6 months

Sweet short crust pastry

I thought I would share the recipe for my go to short crust pastry as it is the easiest of all the pastries there are and it works so well for savoury and sweet dishes.

You can easily elevate the flavours wether you're doing sweet or savoury, for example for my sweet short crust for my recent attempts at mince pies, i added in grated orange zest.

For my go to sweet short crust pastry you will need:

175g plain flour
75g  cold unsalted butter
25g icing sugar*
1 medium egg

• Place the butter and flour into a food processor and blitz together until you get a breadcrumb consistency. Alternatively you can rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips if you don't have a food processor

• Stir in the icing sugar, then whisk the egg and add straight it. Use your hands to bring the mixture into a soft dough. If yiu find it's a little dry, you can add a tsp of water.

• Once the dough forms, flatten it out slightly on a lightly floured work surface, and wrap in cling film. Chill the wrapped dough in the fridge for at least 15 minutes before using as required.

* if you are making savoury short crust, use salted butter, leave out the icing sugar and follow the steps in the same way.

Cinnamon churros

Churros are something I've steered well clear of due to the fact that they are made from choux pastry but thankfully not anymore as in my last post I shared my succesful recipe for choux in my last post, so I thought it was high time I gave them a go.

The beauty of churros is that you can experiment with different flavours or dipping sauces to go along side them as they are so simple in flavour themselves.

For my first attempt I decided to stick to the classical cinnamon sugar, but I discovered a jar of lotus roscoff spread lurking in my cupboard of baking stuff so I ended up using it as a dipping sauce and it went very well


You could just have them dusted with icing sugar and devour them on their own or drizzle with melted chocolate or for a bit of a cheekier treat - a good lashing of nutella.

For my cinnamon churros you will need

1 x batch of my choux pastry
Piping bag with a star nozzle attached
Caster sugar
Ground cinnamon
Sunflower/ vegetable oil for frying

• To start, make up the cinnamon sugar by mixing tog some caster sugar with some ground cinnamon in a large flat plate- I didn't measure the cinnamon or the sugar, I just did it by eye.  I then lined another flat plate with kitchen paper to drain the oil off the churros as they are deep fried.

• I then made up one batch of my Choux pastry, and transferred the dough to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle.

•  Heat up your oil in either a deep fat fryer or a a deep heavy based pan. The oil needs to be at a temperature of 190/195c 

• Very carefully, hold the piping bag with the dough in over the oil, and pipe the batter straight into the oil. Use a knife or pair of scissors to cut the dough off to your desired length. I piped my churros roughly just a little longer than my index finger, and fried 5- 6 at a time.*

• The churros should take about 4-5 minutes to cook and turn golden brown in colour. Remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon, then straight onto the kitchen paper. 

• Quickly transfer the churros to the plate with the cinnamon sugar and toss gently until evenly coated. Serve them as they are, or for a bit more of a treat, I drizzled mine with melted biscoff spread 




* I ended up with a batch of  almost 30 churros with the amount of dough for this recipe 

Choux pastry

Choux pastry is something that I always thought was super difficult and for the first few times I made it, I could never get if right when using it for eclairs or profiteroles.

My pastry would either sink every time and I would end up with flattened choux pancakes or they would rise only the tiniest bit and end up rock hard.

But those that know me will tell you I'm not a quitter so as I wasnt having luck with just reading recipes from books, I turned to YouTube to watch the process and I've succeeded after watching a few of the basic  "do not  break rules" I think it's safe to say I've cracked the basic  choux pastry and can now share it on here with you.

 The "do not break rules" are listed at the bottom of the page after the recipe

For this batch of choux I made up some creme diplomat filled profiteroles topped with milk chocolate ganache and I got almost 30 profiteroles, or you can use this same recipe for my classic eclairs.

To make 25-30 profiteroles you will need :

225ml water
150g plain flour
115g unsalted butter at room temp and cut into cubes
4 medium eggs at room temp
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp fine sea salt

• Start by preheating your oven to 180c fan. Line 2 large baking sheets with greaseproof paper and set aside.
Place the butter, salt, sugar and water in a pan. On a low heat melt the butter, stirring frequently, once it has melted turn up the heat very slightly.

• As soon as the water comes to boiling point  ( don't actually let it boil) take the pan off the heat, add in all the flour and stir together vigorously with a wooden spoon. It will look all clumpy and may not look like it will combine but keep going and you'll end up with a sticky and wet dough.

•  Place the pan back on to a low heat, and continue stirring until the wet dough starts to clump together and comes away from the sides of the pan and is all glossy and smooth

• Take the pan off the heat and transfer to another bowl, and leave to cool for a few minutes. Whilst the dough is cooling, crack the eggs into a separate bowl and whisk together well

• When the dough has slightly cooled, take the eggs and beat them into the dough a little at a time. Each time you add a little of the egg ensure it's all incorporated and the dough turns to a smooth batter.

• To check that the batter is the right consistency, hold up your wooden spoon with a little of the batter, if it's really stiff and clumpy then you need to continue adding the egg. Once the batter droops and forms a "V" shape and doesn't fall off the spoon and holds its shape that is the perfect consistency.

• Mix together one final time for a minute to ensure you have a smooth glossy batter

• Transfer the batter into a piping bag and pipe round blobs onto the trays. I managed to get 28 blobs. Dampen the tip of you finger with a little water and gently press down on any bits of the batter that are sticking up on the top

• Bake the profiteroles for 20 minutes at 180c, then turn down the heat to 160 and bake for a further 5  minutes till crisp and golden.

• Remove from the oven and leave them to cool completely before filling them with your choice of fillings. You can also freeze them if you wish to have them made up ahead of time, just pop them in the oven to crisp back up and fill once they've cooled

Below are my " do not break rules " and honestly as long as you follow them, you'll ace choux pastry. 


1  As with all baking ensure that your eggs and butter are at room temperature as this just helps ensure they mix easily and efficiently 

2 cutting the butter into cubes means that the butter should all melt at the same speed so that when  the water reaches boiling point you shouldn't have odd clumps of butter floating around

3 When waiting for the water to reach boiling point, you don't want to let it boil as this means the water will begin to evaporate which means less steam once choux is in the oven and it's the steam that helps them puff up and rise 

4 Whisking the eggs beforehand means you can control how little or much egg you add in as well the egg whites and yolk being combined fully as I've found that just adding  whole eggs straight in means clumps of egg in the batter and also it can result in over mixing the batter which will result in tough choux pastry

5 However tempted you are, do not open your oven door as all the heat and steam will escape and your lovely choux will collapse

Chicken & chickpea masala

This is the filling i use for my chicken pasties :

1 kilo boneless chicken- I used thigh meat as i find it doesn't dry out as much as breast
1 & 1/2 level tsp salt
2 large onions diced
2 tsp cumin seeds
3 green chillies finely chopped
1 tsp chilli flakes
Handful fresh coriander chopped
1 tin of chickpeas ( water drained )
2 handfuls garden peas
Tsp of garam masala
6 - 7 baby new potatoes cubed
1 tsp lemon juice

• Start by frying off the onions i a little oil till golden brown. Add in the salt and green chillies and cook on a medium heat till the chillies have softened

• Add in the chicken, and cook the chicken through completley, then add in the potatoes & chickpeas, cook the mixture until the the potatoes are soft but not mushed & the chick peas have browned a little

• Still on a medium heat, add in the cumin seeds, chilli flakes and garam masala. Check the seasoning of the salt & chillies and if required you can add in a little more chilli flakes or salt if needed.

• Once the mixture has cooled completley, add in the fresh coriander and lemon juice & mix well. The mixture is now ready to use to make my chicken pasties or alternatively as a filling for a pie.

Team Strawberry

Continuing with my Team Apple VS Team Strawberry, here is my recipe for Strawberry turnovers :

 For 16 turnovers you will need :

1 punnet of strawberries chopped into chunks
4-5 tbsp strawberry jam
2 tbs corn flour 
2 tbsp water
1 egg whisked
1 tbsp caster sugar 
320ml double cream 
1 tsp vanilla paste / seeds from vanilla pod
icing sugar to dust

• Preheat your oven to 180c, place the strawberries, sugar and the jam in a saucepan. Mix together the cornflour and 2 tablespoons of water to make a smooth paste and add to the saucepan Cook the strawberries on a medium heat, till they've slightly softened and the jam has thickened a little - it should take about 10-12 minutes. 
• Line a large rectangle baking tray with baking paper, and open out the pastry sheet. Cut the sheet of pastry into 16 equal rectangles*
• Brush each of the rectangles with the beaten egg and place the pastry in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the each of the sheets has risen and are golden brown on top. Leave to cool completely then cut each rectangle in half, straight through the middle- so you'll end up with 16 top halves and 16 bottom halves
• Whip the double cream with the vanilla paste till you get semi stiff peaks - when you pick it up with a tablespoon it shouldn't drip off and should just hold its shape.
• On each of the bottom halves of pastry, place about 2 tablespoons of the whipped cream, then put about a tablespoon full of the strawberry mixture on top of each slice. Then place the top halves of pastry back on to each slice, and finish off with a good dusting of icing sugar and they're ready to serve 

* if you don't want to make as many as 16 .. use just half the sheet instead of the whole sheet and cut into 8 rectangles .. and save the other half by wrapping up and placing in the freezer as i used my pastry as soon s i'd bought it and it wasn't already frozen

We all have that friend who ...

You know when you're on Facebook or Twitter and a friend posts pictures of some sort of food, wether its breakfast, lunch, dinner or even worse … dessert … and you just HAVE TO HAVE IT !!

Well I had one of those very moments a couple of days ago when a friend of mine posted a picture of a classical school dinners dessert, cornflake tart, and I wanted it right then.

There and then was just not going to happen since I was all out of the vital component, cornflakes, and to add to my predicament outside it was beginning to snow rather heavily so there was no way I was venturing outdoors.

Yesterday the sunshine decided to make a brief appearance so I grabbed my chance and off I went to get my hands on a box of cornflakes. 

For this recipe I made John Whaite's  rich sweet short crust pastry, but cheated with the custard and used shop bought.

For the pastry you will need :

1 egg

125g golden caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour

125g salted butter - cut into cubes

For the filling you will need:

4-5 tbsp raspberry jam

4 tbsp golden syrup

100g cornflakes

55g butter

25g soft brown sugar

• Start with making the pastry. Place the egg, sugar & extract in a bowl and whisk together till combined.
• Sift the flour into the mixture and stir together till you end up with a breadcrumb like consistency. Make sure there are no bits of flour left in the bowl.
• Add in the cubed butter and cut the butter into the flour using a butter knife till it all comes together. I found that as it's been quite cold recently i managed to ' press ' the butter gently into the flour with the back of a wooden spoon.
• Remove from the bowl once combined and knead gently for a couple of seconds. You don't want to over knead it as you'll end up activating the gluten which will end up giving you hard pastry and not the crumbly texture you want with short crust.
• Wrap the pastry in cling film or baking paper and chill for at least 30 minutes before using it.
• Once chilled, roll the pastry out onto a well floured board, to about a centimetre thickness, and line a round 20cm baking with the pastry.
• Press the pastry in gently, making sure there are no air bubbles, prick the base lightly with a fork and place in the freezer for about 15 minutes. DO NOT cut off the excess pastry from the sides of the tin
• Remove the pastry from the freezer, line with greaseproof paper or foil, weigh the paper down with baking beans, uncooked rice or even lentils
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200c for 15 minutes. Remove the baking paper and bake for a further 15 minutes till lightly golden brown, leave to cool*
• Once cooled. carefully cut off any excess pastry round the sides and set aside 
• To make the filling, heat up the jam in a small bowl in the microwave in short 30 second bursts and pour into the case, spreading it out evenly with a butter knife.
• Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a small pan on a low heat together. Gently fold in the cornflakes making sure they're all coated in the caramel. Pour the cornflakes into the pastry case and even them out with a wet knife. Allow the tart to cool and for the cornflakes to set slightly .. and serve away 

* i found that when the case was baking in the oven, most of the excess pastry fell to the bottom of the oven and made quite a bit of mess. Place the baking tin onto a baking sheet/ tray, that way you'll save the bottom of your oven getting into a mess and save your time cleaning up.