Lemon Meringue Dreams

When I was a child one of my favourite desserts was Lemon Meringue Pie - I was always more excited than a 14 year old girl at a One Direction concert when my mum announced that it was what we were having that Sunday so I've been meaning to make one for a while. However, me and pastry still have a tumultuous relationship, so a couple of weekends ago I decided instead to play safe and make Lemon Meringue cupcakes.

Obviously I've made many a cupcake over the past 18 months but I've never ever made meringue before, so there was still a bit of jeopardy involved.

I made the cake mix as usual, except with the addition of some lemon rind and then added a blob of lemon curd into each case and then topped with a tiny bit more cake batter. I was worried that the lemon curd would sink to the bottom, as happened when I did the same process with jam, but all the recipes I read said to use this technique so I had faith and went for it!

Then came the time to make the elusive meringue; I've seen these go wrong many a time on TGBBO (if you don't know that abbreviation then shame on you*) but went at it with conviction hoping to power through. After a fair bit of whisking, when i thought it to be stiff enough I performed the tried and tested 'holding it upside down' test; I didn't have anyone around to use as a volunteer and I didn't have the balls to hold it over my own head so I just held it upside over the worktop for a few seconds. It passed the test so I loaded it into a piping bag and piped it onto the top of the cakes the same way I would butter icing  I think it could have perhaps done with a bot more beating but I know its hard to reverse meringue if you've overdone it so I played safe.

The last step was to brown the meringue, this steps would have been a lot easier if I had a blowtorch rather than having to use my very temperamental grill but I got there in the end with only a few 'almost setting the house alight with a meringue fire' moments.

On the whole they turned out pretty well, as I had thought the lemon curd had sunk to the bottom meaning they weren't as lemony as I would have liked but having the meringue topping rather than icing makes a nice change, and the browning of the meringue gives them a nice look.

One day soon me and pastry will have to have a sit down and work out our problems but until then these cupcakes will have to do and my want for making a Lemon Meringue pie will remain just a dream.


* The Great British Bake-Off - I wont tell you again!