Procrastinating at the moment means scrolling and reminiscing over the deluge of European summer warmth crowding my instagram feed – the FOMO is huge. Though I feel very lucky to have spent last year there, it does seem like a long time ago when defrosting my windscreen and driving to the hospital in the dark (and not infrequently, returning home in the dark). The joy and sun emanating from the myriad of photos of Positano, Greek islands or London’s best parks makes me want to hop straight on a plane. Essentially, I felt like something equally bright was necessary this week to balance out the depths of Melbourne winter – this whole lemon meringue tart, blow-torch fun included.
On another note (skip the next couple of paragraphs if you’d rather head straight for the recipe), if you’re on instagram yourself in New Zealand or Australia (and I believe Canada as well), you might have noticed the removal of instagram ‘likes’ over the past week. As in, you can still double tap somebody’s photograph, but the like count and ability to see who has liked a photograph has been removed. You can still see these statistics for your own images, however. This is being trialed as a way of removing the competitiveness of the platform, as a gesture by the company towards improving the mental health of its users. There may be some merit to this, particularly with school age users – not having a direct comparison available to peers might be a step in the right direction. However, I’m not sure what this means for those of us who use instagram as a tool for sharing content with a broader audience than a circle of close friends, and the cynic in me can’t help but feel like it’s just another money-making move by one of the world’s most influential and powerful companies – to the detriment of smaller businesses and creatives.
Although my writing and recipes appear here on this blog, instagram is one of the best ways to reach new people – to share images of recipes in development and things I’ve been making lately – and also to connect with other bloggers, photographers and any of you out there who might ask questions about a recipe or post a photograph of one you’ve made. It’s a huge source of inspiration and motivation. Removing likes removes one of the easy ways for people to interact with content: I’m hypothesising, but it seems like users will be more likely to scroll straight past (without evidence of their ‘like’, why bother?) and makes it difficult to see when someone’s content has resonated with many others. As a small blog, having a few photographs do ‘well’ in terms of likes and comments is a great way to attract the attention of other users and expand your audience. Fewer ’likes’ means poorer performance in the mysterious instagram algorithm, and less visibility of content.
It also makes it impossible to distinguish users with real engagement from bought: the reality is that many users ‘buy’ followers, and the easiest way to tell is when a user has lots of followers, but very little genuine engagement on their photographs. Removing ’likes’ means there is no way to know the difference. In terms of money-making by the platform, there has also been much written about how this move is another attempt to force brands to buy advertising space from instagram directly, rather than working with bloggers.
Suffice to say it’s a little frustrating. At the moment being busy with my last year of university means I haven’t had much time to spend in the kitchen and being the camera, and this move to make sharing content more difficult feels like another unnecessary hurdle!
Anyway. Back to the whole lemon meringue tart! It seems like lemon meringue has been EVERYWHERE lately, and it’s a classic combination I hadn’t done before. Rather than the traditional lemon curd based pie, I used the Vitamix container to blitz up a whole lemon filling, peel and all. It’s heavy on the citrus, not too sweet without being bitter, and balanced by the buttery short pastry and mile high swirled meringue topping. Plus it’s an opportunity to break out your blow-torch. The Vitamix does all the heavy lifting here: you can use it to make the pastry, and again to make the filling silky smooth.
- You can make the pastry crust and lemon filling a day ahead and keep refrigerated, but make the meringue within a few hours of when you plan to serve the tart.
- You will be left with a few extra egg yolks – use it as an opportunity to make aioli or ice cream!
- Use a good quality lemon with a medium-thin pith, quarter it and remove the seeds – a really thick pith or seeds will make the tart filling too bitter.
This post is sponsored by Vitamix. I received compensation, but as always, all opinions and content are my own. Thank you for supporting the companies that support The Brick Kitchen.
- 200 g plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
- 65 g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
- pinch of salt
- 140 g butter refrigerator cold, chopped into cubes
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon ice water if needed
- 1 medium lemon washed (thin skin if possible)
- 200 g caster sugar (1 cup)
- 60 ml lemon juice (1/4 cup)
- 4 large eggs
- 1 1/2 tbsp corn flour (corn starch)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 80 g unsalted butter, melted
- 4 large egg whites room temperature
- 200 g caster sugar (1 cup)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
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Combine the flour, icing sugar and salt in the Vitamix container. Pulse on low speed to combine.
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Add the cold butter cubes and pulse until the largest pieces of butter are just bigger than pea-size. Add the vanilla essence, white vinegar and egg yolk. Pulse on medium speed just until the dough starts clumping together, 6-10 times. Add a tablespoon of ice water if it seems too dry. It will still be a bit crumbly - do not over mix. Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and bring together with your hands. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
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Grease a 26-28cm tart tin. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured bench to about 3mm thick and line the tart tin, pressing firmly into the sides of the tin. If too hard to roll, leave it at room temperature for 10 minutes to soften a little. If it rips at all or you find that one edge is too thin, it is easy to use the leftover pastry scraps to patch it back together.
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Trim the pastry to form a neat edge - I usually roll my rolling pin over the edge to cut through the pastry.
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Rest the lined tart tin in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.
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Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line the pastry case with foil, then fill it with dry rice or pie weights and blind bake for 20 minutes. Remove the weights and foil, then return to the oven for a further 5 minutes, or until light golden. Set aside while you make the filling.
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Cut the lemon into quarters and discard the seeds and any stem. Add to the Vitamix container (peel and pith included) with the caster sugar and lemon juice and blitz until smooth.
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Add the eggs, corn flour, salt and melted butter and blitz again until well combined.
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Pour the lemon filling into the baked pastry shell.
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Bake for 15-20 minutes until the lemon filling is just set to touch.
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Cool to room temperature then refrigerate to set the filling completely.
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Place all ingredients in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water and cook, stirring constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm. (Rub a little between your fingers to check).
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Remove the bowl from the heat, and using an electric beater or stand whisk, beat for 5-7 minutes until thick and glossy.
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Dollop the meringue over the cooled lemon filling, then use an offset spatula or the back of a spoon to create your choice of swirls/swoops.
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Use a blow torch to brown the meringue. Serve that day (the rest of the tart can be made a day ahead and refrigerated, but make the meringue on the day you plan to serve it).
Hi Claudia , This is one of my old time favourite proper pudding!
Could you use a magi mix instead of the Vitamix ?
Hi Susie! Yes you definitely could. Would love to hear how it goes!