By Liane Arno

I REALLY love lemons as they can transform food. Add a little squeeze to a dish that is too salty and it will be less salty, if the dish is overly sweet, a squirt will make it less sweet and if a dish is bland, then you add pizzaz.

I am always astonished when I see lemons for sale in the supermarkets when it seems every second garden in Wonthaggi has one and often the residents kindly leave their surplus in a box with a sign “Free”. How much better is that than paying a dollar (up to two dollars in summer) for a lemon?

Now I don’t mean to sound stingy but I find the price of pies in the supermarket (never mind the baker’s) to be astonishingly high. I was looking at a lemon meringue pie the other day in the supermarket and it was $20. As I was looking online I came across the same supermarket’s kindly provided recipe where you can make your own. Lo and behold it offered to ‘shop’ for me and showed an overall price of $22.04. ​

​How clever! They make out there’s no point to baking it yourself as it will cost more than buying the ready-made product. Of course, you canny shoppers will realise that their price is based on purchasing, for example, a whole bag of flour when you only need a cup.

When I did the sums of my recipe, with free lemons I worked out you can make your own for less than $3. You don’t need many lemons to make a lemon meringue pie so even if you have to resort to buying them it is still less than $7 at this time of year.

First make the base. Combine and rub until you end up with a crumbly mixture:

• 100g butter (cold and cut into little cubes)
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt

Then add:

• 60ml ice cold water

Knead until you have a firm ball (you might need to add a little more water or flour), wrap tightly in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for a couple of hours.

When chilled, roll out a circle to fit your pie dish. Oil the dish, put the pastry on top and on top of that put a layer of baking paper and then cover with rice as you are about to blind bake your pastry.

Matt insisted that I should be letting him do this part as he is legally blind!

Anyway, pop into a 165°C oven for 20 minutes, bring it out and remove the baking paper and rice and pop back in the oven for a further five minutes.

While this is happening make your filling by putting in a saucepan and bringing to the boil:

• 1 cup sugar
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 3 tbsp cornflour
• ¾ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 4 lemons’ worth)
• ¾ cup of water

When at the boiling point, take off the heat and stir in:

• 2 tbsp butter

When this is combined stir half, very slowly, into a bowl containing:

• 4 egg yolks

If you do it too quickly you will end up with scrambled eggs.
Pour the egg mixture back into the half you left in the saucepan and back onto a medium heat and stir until it is thick.
Dollop into the pastry case and now you are ready to make the meringue.
In a mix master on a high speed mix:

• 4 egg whites

When they are forming soft peaks slowly add:

• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ tsp cream of tartar

When stiff peaks form cover the pie. Be sure to go all the way to the edges covering the pastry sides as well.
Pop in the oven which you still have going for 20 minutes.