Lemon Meringue Pie: The King of Desserts

Lemon Meringue Pie is up there with the industrial revolution for British achievements, and the best thing is it's not that hard to make at all, I made it after orchestra at school.
This is mainly Mary Berry's recipe, but with a few personal tweaks I learned to make the perfect Pie.
1)I always do shortcrust pastry in the food processor because it always comes out best and your body heat doesn't warm it to the point it becomes difficult to handle (and no one likes rubbing butter into flour by hand). Blitz 50g of vegetable shortening and 75g of butter (or 125g of butter if vegetable fat isn't for you) into 250g plain flour and 50g icing sugar until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Blend in one egg yolk and slowly add some water until it comes together. Be careful, before it clumps as one ball of dough it will look like it needs more unnecessary water so use it very sparingly.
 Gently bring the dough together in some clingfilm. Work it any more than that and it will go tough. Rest in the fridge for at least half an hour. Roll it out to the thickness of about half a centimeter, turn it around and flip it over as you roll it so it doesn't start to stick then gently get your hands underneath it and lift it onto a loose-bottomed flan tin. Cut away excess pastry along the edge of the tin and prick it slightly with a fork. Line it with foil and fill it with baking beans, dry rice or dry beans (but baking beans are best). Trim away any excess foil. Bake blind in a 180 degree oven for about 10 minutes then remove the foil and beans and return it to the oven until it dries out and goes golden-brown. About another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
2)Mix the zest and juice of 4 lemons with 90g or approx. 8 tbsp corn flour to a smooth paste, and then pour in 600ml boiling water and stir quickly. Pour it into a pan and leave to cool slightly before whisking in 4 egg yolks, 200g caster sugar and 2 tbsp of double cream. Heat over a low heat for around 5 minutes until it has thickened to a curd. Pour into the pastry shell. If any mixture is left pour it into a jar and have as lemon curd.
3)Now here's the annoying bit- the meringue. You'll have already separated 5 eggs by now so add a teaspoon of cream of tartar or a pinch of salt and whisk to medium peak, so the whites should stay in a shape when you lift the whisk out, but they still flop a bit. Gradually pour 250g of caster sugar to the sides of the bowl and then set it high and whisk the eggs until when you lift it out, it doesn't fall at all. I even risked turning it on my head and it didn't move an inch. Using a spatula or large spoon, spread the Meringue evenly over the lemon curd and use a fork to point up peaks of it to give a nice finish. Cover it all the way so no lemon is showing. You can use a piping bag to look really neat.
4)Bake it in a 180 degrees oven until the Meringue goes brown but still is nice and soft underneath. To serve, leave it to cool a bit before placing it on an upside down bowl, dropping the outer case and transferring it to a plate. Serve warm (not piping hot straight out of the oven mind or cold.) You can make this a day ahead, preferably though just make the lemon curd base and make and spread the merinue on before baking the next day. When you make the whole thing a day ahead the meringue may weep lightly, but it's not the end of the world- and perhaps it's best to deal with the meringue dripping a little for sanity's sake.

• And one last thing, if you have excess pastry and excess lemon curdy filling cut the pastry into little circles and fill with the curd to bake in a mini muffin tin- then you've got lemon curd tarts. And of course if you just have leftover pastry, make jam tarts!