Little Vegan Lemon Meringue Pies (AKA Restless-Day-Off-Work Pies)
These pies are soy-free, vegan, boxed egg-replacer-free, and the meringue is made of aquafaba. These do take time, but it’s only because of all the waiting steps, and the three different components. Do this when you’ve got a day off and you feel so restless that all you want to do is bake. The recipe is actually for an entire regular-sized pie, but I wanted to make them small and transportable. That meant that I had way more filling than I needed, and meringue, but I put the filling in cups to set in the fridge and I’ve got lemon curd out of it!
Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
1 tbsp white sugar (optional)
1/4 cup oil (I use canola)
2 1/2 tbsp water
This crust is modified from this recipe. Mix the flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Mix the oil and water, then make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the oil mixture. Mix with a fork until it’s you’ve got no flourey bits left and you can press it into a ball. Roll out and cut out circles for the pie plates. Press into lace. This should make enough for 7 muffin-sized pies, or one regular pie.
Instructions for blind baking come from here. Heat the oven to 210C. Line the crusts with parchment and pour rice into the middle (alternatively, stab them all over with a fork - but this doesn’t work as well). Bake for 10 min, until the edges go brown. Remove them from the oven, take out the parchment and rice, and bake the crusts for another 5 min. Let the cool.
Lemon Pie Filling:
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup cornflour
1/4 tsp agar
pinch salt
1 1/4 cup milk alternative (I have used rice and almond milks before, but apparently soy or coconut would work too)
1 cup cold water
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
Mix the sugar and corn flour in a pot until uniform. Add the agar and salt and mix well. Slowly add the milk alternative, stirring as you go so there are no lumps. Add the water, lemon juice, and zest. Heat over medium-low heat until it just reaches a boil and summer for 4-5 min, whisking constantly. As they say, ‘...when you can’t stir no more it’s ready...’ It will become really thick, and the colour changes, then it’s done. Pour it into your pie shells. This recipe is from here.
Meringue:
Notes: I’ve tried this recipe five times, and it worked beautifully four times, the other time it didn’t work because I didn’t beat the aquafaba long enough before adding other ingredients. The aquafaba should form soft peaks before you start adding anything, it should mostly already look like meringue. I like to strain out the aquafaba from the beans and put it in a metal bowl in the fridge for an hour or so before starting. Strain carefully, you don’t want bits of beans in your meringue.
Liquid from one 400g can of chickpeas (or canillini beans)
1/2 tsp cream of targar
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
With electric egg beaters (don’t try this by hand, it will take you a week), whip the legume liquid for at least 5 min, if not 10, until it forms peaks and looks white and frothy. It should look like meringue (but taste really weird, don’t try it). Add the cream of tartar a little at a time and beat in. Mix for another minute. Very slowly (1tbsp at a time) add the icing sugar. If you add it too fast, you ruin everything because it wrecks the bubbles. Be patient. When it’s all added, you should have strong peaks and it should not be soupy at all. Add the vanilla slowly, while beating.
Final assembly:
Add the meringue on the pies (you could pipe it on if you want it fancy, but I wanted traditional points on top). Set the oven to Grill, and put them it and watch them - seriously, sit in front of the oven wearing oven mits and wait (it’s what I do!). It can sometimes just take about 30 seconds, other times a couple minutes. Depends on your oven. You don’t need to cook the meringue, just make it look toasty. If you wanted to cook the meringue (like a pavlova) set the oven to 110C and give it 2 hours, then leave it in the oven to cool.
