Lemon Meringue Pie

I remember, when I first saw lemon meringue pie in the "Toast" film (2010), with my favorite Helena Bonham Carter and teen Freddie Highmore, I already knew then: I will make it by myself one day!
And, finally, this day came:)

So today, dear friends, we're making lemon meringue pie from the "Toast".

What we need:

For the Pastry
285 g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
155 g cold butter
1 egg yolk or full egg - optionally
5-6 tablespoons of ice-cold water

For the Filling (Lemon Curd)
250 g sugar
3 tablespoons of corn (or potato) flour
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Lemon juice from 3 lemons (app. to 125 ml)
400 ml of milk (or water)
4 egg yolks
80 g of butter

For the Meringue
4 egg whites
200 g sugar
1-2 teaspoons corn (potato) flour (optionally)

Preparation time
2 hours

First we need to make a pastry. Put the butter in the flour and carefully chop it with a knife. You can put already cut butter of course.

Add salt, water and keep mixing. Try to do it very carefully, but fast. Otherwise butter will melt. Then add a full egg. This step is optional, for me it's better to add an egg. Please note: egg makes pastry more soft and because of this fact it's hard to mix it to a dough, in this case you need to add more flour, until the dough will be...mm..obedient:)

Than, when dough is ready, put it in the fridge for cooling. For me - 30 minutes was enough. After - take dough and put it into the buttered fluted flan tin.

Than - prick the base with a fork, put a baking sheet on a dough, than - some beans (in my case it was chickpeas) on the sheet. We're doing this to keep dough on the same level and do not let him grow. Some people keep dough with sheet and beans for whole baking time, some of them - 10 minutes with and 10-15 minutes without, and I also did like this. So:) Start baking base in preheated to 200°C oven.
Voilà!

When the dough is in the oven - prepare the filling (lemon curd).
Prepare grated rind and squeeze lemon juice.

If you're squeeze lemons by hands like I do - don't forget to filter them later.

Add some corn (potato) flour to egg yolks and mix them up.

In the original film recipe the next step is to pour gradually egg yolks with corn flour to the hot milk, stirring it until the mass will be homogeneous, BUT if you'll do this - there's a huge probability, that the yolks will just boil in the milk. So, if you're new in baking, or you want to be sure that yolks won't boil use this tips:
Tip #1. Boil milk (or water) with corn flour and lemon juice, sugar don't forget to stir it intensively! Put butter and yolks. Stir really good.
Tip # 2. Take some milk (a glass for example), add it to egg yolks with corn flour and stir it. Put the rest of milk on a heat, boil it with sugar and turn the heat off. Only then carefully add yolks+milk+corn flour in the bowl with milk and turn the heat on for a few minutes. Stir it really good.

After the filling is ready let it chill a bit and prepare meringue. Put egg whites in the bowl and use the mixer or some other machine to mix them up. Gradually add sugar. You can add some corn flour, it can help your meringue "stand".
The next step - put the lemon curd on the pastry. Make it as smooth as you can.

And now the most interesting part: we have to put meringue finally. You can do it with a spoon or with some cream syringe.

Tip for some new ones (like I am:): first spread meringue on the whole pie and then - put a different size "hills" on it and use your fantasy:)
Put the pie in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the meringue is crisp.

Here's what I got: