The lemons looked great but not being used, I thought I had a can of condensed milk, unfortunately no short crust in freezer or packet so I had to make that, good ingredients, looks fine, will cut it in an hour and hopefully should taste ok.  In case your wondering I did wipe the bottle down before using it as a rolling pin.



Pastry or use pastry mix or frozen or ready made case.

2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
pinch salt
Approx. 2 Tablespoons cold water.

Rub butter into sifted flour till it resembles breadcrumbs
Add most of cold water and mix with knife, if it doesnt
form a ball gradually sprinkle more water until you get
a ball.  Cover with glad wrap and put in frig for 30 minutes.

Get beads heating up

Take out pastry and leave at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Get CO heating up.

Roll out and line pie tin (dish).

Put on top some foil and dry beans or rice and blind bake for about
25 minutes at 350.  I used 8 beads down and 16 beads up and trivett the temperature gauge was showing 400 but with it being windy and I put the timer on I felt it would be still ok.

I used baking paper folded in 4 to help lift the plate out of the CO.

Remove foil and rice and let cool a bit while you make the filling.

Easy Lemon Filling Mix till smooth:

Can condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
2 Yolks is recommended but I used 4
1 tablespoon corn flour (optional)

Put in pastry.

Meringue:  This is marshmallowy rather than crispy (cuts better usually)

4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
pinch cream tartar (optional)
2 teaspoons corn flour (optional)

Beat egg whites still stiff, add cream of tartar
gradually beat in sugar
lightly fold in corn flour

Pile up meringue and cook for about 15 minutes again
using baking paper as lifters.  I took the trivett out
for this last bit as the bottom was only partially
cooked and I felt the heat beads would have been slightly
less hot.

Cool for at least an hour before cutting.  Waiting...waiting...

As well as all the really great CO cooks in here a few others are on a learning curve like me and I dont mind showing the hiccups I encounter.

I used a fairly thick ceramic pie dish above (being the only one I could find).  My family is phobic about black bottoms (personally I think they are cute!!) so I used the trivett for the first part of the process.  The end result shows the top and sides and filling cooked to almost perfection but the bottom although eatable is not a good short crust base.  If I havent got a TIN pie dish and if I make it again I would do the first 25 minutes without the trivett.

Plenty more where it came from HW and no it wasnt empty, I keep a couple in the fridge and they say cold is best when dealing with pastry.  Its actually an el cheapo as well.