1. Ingredient preparation and baking the pie crust

• Remove the 5 eggs (for the lemon filling and the meringue) from the fridge. Really do this first because you want the eggs to be able to reach room temperature before you need to use them. Eggs are easier to separate when they are still cold. So separate the egg yolks and whites into two separate bowls straight away. Also, make sure to measure the 79 ml of water into a bowl/measuring jug for the meringue and put it in the fridge to chill.
• Prepare a (22 cm) pie dish by buttering the inside and by sprinkling it with some flour.
• Add all of the ingredients for the pie crust to a bowl and mix them by hand. I believe that when you mix it by hand you can really get a feel for the texture of the dough. It will be very crumbly in the beginning. But after kneading a little while the butter will start to melt and the dough will start to hold together better. Once you feel that it starts to hold together without cracks (just about, you don’t want to knead the dough for too long or it will be hard to work with) it’s time to roll it out.
• Flour a surface and a rolling pin and roll out your dough. You want to make sure to re-apply flour to the surface underneath the dough and to the rolling pin during the process to make sure that the dough won’t stick. Then carefully place the dough onto the pie dish.
• Gently press the dough down and into the sides of the dish. I gently use the end of a wooden spoon to really press the dough into the grooves on the sides. Use a fork to poke holes in the bottom. You can use scissors to ‘trim’ the dough so that it won’t stick over the edge of the dish. When it does, it will drip off during the baking process (I speak from experience). Please be aware that the pie hasn’t been ‘trimmed’ yet in the picture above!
• Then put the pie dish in the freezer for 30 minutes. After 20 minutes have passed preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
• Line the frozen pie crust with aluminum foil so that the foil extends over the edges (this will be useful for removing the foil later on). Fill two-thirds of the dish with pie weights or dry beans (or rice/chickpeas!).
• Bake the pie crust for 20 minutes. Then remove the foil with the pie weights. If your oven tends to bake things unevenly, make sure to turn the pie dish around at this point to get that even brown colour. Then bake it for a further 10 minutes. Remove the pie crust from the oven and set aside.

2. Make the lemon filling

• Whisk the 5 egg yolks that you allowed to come to room temperature in step 1.
• In a medium-sized saucepan, add 6 tablespoons cornflour, 266 grams white granulated sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 353 ml water, and whisk to combine. Bring to a boil on medium heat, whisking constantly. Let the mixture simmer for a minute or two until it begins to thicken.
• Once the cornflour mixture has thickened up well (you want it to get the consistency of glue) remove the saucepan from the stove. Take a spoonful of the cornflour mixture and whisk it into the beaten egg yolks to temper the yolks.
• To temper the eggs is to slowly warm them up before you introduce them to the recipe. If you skipped this step and would just put the eggs into the warm cornflour mixture, you’d end up with scrambled eggs!
• Continue to whisk in spoonfuls of the cornflour mixture until you’ve used about half of the mixture.
• Then add the egg yolk mixture back to the pot with the cornflour mixture. Return it to a boil, on medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook it 3 to 4 minutes. The cornflour will keep the eggs from curdling.
• Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and unsalted butter.

3. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius

4. Prepare the cornflour mixture for the meringue

• In a small saucepan, whisk together 1 tablespoon cornflour and the 79 ml of cold water (that you put in the refrigerator to chill in step 1) until the cornflour dissolves. Heat it on medium heat and whisk until the mixture bubbles and thickens. Here you want it to get the texture of glue as well. Remove from heat and set aside.

5. Whisk together the white granulated sugar (for the meringue) and the cream of tartar

• This is a step you need to make if you don’t have white wine vinegar. If you do, then ignore this step.

6. Make the meringue

• Place the egg whites, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar in the bowl of your mixer. Or if you are using a hand mixer like me, just in a bowl. Start mixing the egg whites at low speed and gradually increase the speed to medium.
• Once the egg whites are frothy, slowly add in the white granulated sugar (with the cream of tartar if you don’t have white wine vinegar), a spoonful at a time. Beat until the egg whites form soft peaks. It’s ok here for the peaks to fold over.
• Add the cornflour water mixture (of step 4) a spoonful at a time, as you continue to mix the egg whites. Increase the speed to high and continue to mix until the egg whites have formed stiff peaks. Do not over-mix, or your meringue will be grainy. This is where I usually went wrong. Out of fear of over-mixing, I would stop too early and the meringue wouldn’t be firm enough! Just make sure to stop regularly to check whether the mixture is stiff enough and you should be ok.

7. Fill the pie crust with the lemon filling

• Heat the lemon filling again, until it is bubbling hot. You want the mixture to be hot because it will basically cook the bottom of the meringue while the oven will bake the top of the meringue.
• Scoop the steaming hot filling into the pre-baked pie crust and make sure to spread it evenly.

8. Top with meringue

• Working quickly, use a spoon to spread the meringue mixture evenly around the edge of the pie.
• Make sure the mixture attaches to the crust with no gaps. The crust will help to anchor the meringue and help keep it from shrinking.
• Fill in the center with more meringue mixture. Use the back of a spoon to create peaks all over the meringue.

9. Bake

• Bake the pie for 15 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius until the meringue is golden brown. Here again make sure to turn the dish around if your oven tends do bake things unevenly.
• Transfer to a wire rack and let it cool completely to room temperature. If the pie is even slightly warm when you cut into it, the lemon base may be runny.

10. Storage and cutting

• Once you have allowed the pie to cool to room temperature. It’s advised to put the pie covered in the refrigerator if you aren’t planning to eat the pie for a couple of hours. The shape won’t hold up very well in the refrigerator. So it would be best to make the pie on the same day you plan to eat it. I do have to add that I have had leftovers in the refrigerator overnight and they held up fine.
• It can be tricky to cut the lemon meringue pie. It helps to wet a sharp knife with hot water and cut the pie with that. Do make sure to carefully slice through that top layer with a small back and forth motion and to wet the knife between each slice.