Taking Frankie For a Walk - Lemon Meringue Pie

These school free days I'm planning some cooking firsts. Makin' pastry. Makin' pasta. Makin' bread. Mmm, carbs - my favourite flavour. Not without a little help from my friends, though, and this week I thought it would be a good chance to take Frankie out and about and see how she cooks.

Frankie's Aftertoon Tea is a lovley book shaped around a lovely concept. Recipes practised, tweaked and loved by generations are presented for your baking pleasure among beautiful photographs and sweet stories of afternoon teas with mums and grandmas.

I'd never made - nor, I confess, eaten - Lemon Meringue Pie, but it looked awfully pretty, so I put my dinner party guests at risk and gave it a go. It turned out rather well (despite a tense and somewhat masterchef moment where I was convinced it wasn't set on the inside) so I thought I'd present the recipe for you here, with some tips and tricks gleaned along the way, and a whole hearted reccomendation of the book.

Kate Fitzgerald's Lemon Meringue Pie

What You Will Need:

Pastry

• 70g SR flour
• 130g plain flour
• 120g cold butter, cubed (I used Lurpak - delish)
• 1 large happy free range egg

Filling

• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, strained
• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp butter
• Grated rind of 1 lemon

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 4 tbsp sugar

What You Will Need to Do:

Let's start by making the pastry. First step: don't be scared. If you have a food processor, it's the easiest thing in the world. Even if you don't, I imagine it would still be very simple, just slightly messier!

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Combine your sifted flours, sugar and butter in a food processor. Blend until it looks like fine, soft breadcrumbs.
• Add egg and continue to process until the the mixture comes together in a ball. This might take a little while - don't take it out to soon, it will come together. Just keep hittin' that pulse button. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
• Roll out your dough on a well floured surface, until it fits a 22cm pie dish. Don't stress if it's a bit crumbly.
• Gently transfer into your dish, patch up any cracks and trim the edges.
• Blind bake for ten minutes, remove rice or weights and bake for a further ten or fifteen minutes, or until lightly coloured. Set aside and allow to cool.

I always use rice for blind baking, and it always works out fine. I also never have the patience to let things fully cool, and that works out okay too! Now onto the filling...

• Combine sifted flours and sugar in a small saucepan.
• Add the lemon juice and one cup of boiling water, stirring well to combine.
• Cook until it thickens, probably 5 to 10 minutes. Remember to keep stirring - I was somewhat distracted by visitors at this point, and it got a little bit lumpy. Luckily, I did what Simon Bryant always does when things go a bit wrong: strain it and hope for the best.
• Add egg yolks, rind and butter. Stir well. Poor into your (mostly) cool pastry.

Now we make the meringue. Again, not as hard as you might think! The recipe specifies a glass bowl - I used ceramic, it was fine. As long as it isn't metal, you'll be fine. Make sure your bowl is completely dry as well, water does damage to meringue!

• Beat egg whites until stiff
• Gradually add sugar, and beat until thick and fluffy.
• Pile it on top of the filling, use spatula to swirl into pretty patterns, thusly:

Warm in the oven until brown on top, and enjoy with ice cream and friends.

I didn't manage to get a photo of it cut open - we got stuck in a little too quickly for me to intrude with awkward photo taking (interupting dinner to take photos is the curse of the food blogger). You'll have to trust me when I say it was simply lovely, and that my grandma would approve.

Oranges & Lemons

It seems that winter has arrived early this year. So early, and with such unforgiving speed, that at our house we simply weren't prepared for the onset of the cold. My house is a darling little terrace, built in 1888. It's quaint, it's charming, I'm in love with the plaster fixtures and high ceilings, but the fireplaces are strictly decorative, and the place is about as well insulated as a particularly flimsy shoebox. I've been looking for every excuse to have our oven pumping these last few weeks, and these cakes are two great reasons to turn the gas on. Two delicious, citrusy offerings that put me in mind of the sunny autumn days we're apparently not going to see this year. Put on your warmest woollen socks, and enjoy these cakes with a piping hot cup of tea.

Lemon Syrup Cake

This recipe comes to me courtesy of The Boy and his Mum. It was originally written down by The Boy's Great Great Grandmother, making him the fifth generation of his family to have prepared and enjoyed it. It is seriously delicious, and if you have a Boy around the house who is as big an eater as mine is, I'd suggest making double quantities.

What you will need:

• 125g butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons of lemon zest

For the syrup:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup caster sugar

What you will need to do:

1. Heat your oven to 180 degrees, grease a loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture appears light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beat the mixture well after each addition.

3. Sift the flours and salt and add in a little at a time. For each addition of flour mix in a little of the milk too.

4. Once all the flours and milk are mixed through, add lemon rind to what is now your cake batter and give the lot one last stir.

5. Pour the batter into your greased loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes

Adding the syrup:

1. While the cake is cooking, combine 1/3 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of caster sugar, and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

2. When cake is cooked and still hot from the oven, pour over the lemon mixture and leave to stand until the cake has absorbed it all. Mmm, delicious.

Flourless Orange Cake

This recipe is quite time consuming, but entirely worthwhile. In my opinion Oranges + Cake = Best Thing Ever, and this cake in particular is really orangey. It's dense and moist without being too sweet. Everything a good cake should be. Adapted from the Claudia Roden Middle Eastern Cookbook.

What you will need:

• 2 large oranges
• 6 eggs
• 250 grams almond meal
• 250 grams of caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

What you will need to do:

1. Place oranges in a pot and cover with water, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for two hours.

2. Remove oranges from water, chop into chunks and remove any pips. Using a food processor, blend the orange chunks until smooth. Then set aside to cool completely.

3. Preheat your oven to 190 degrees, and grease a 24cm spring form cake tin.

4. Beat the eggs together and add to the orange mixture, blend until combined.

5. Add in almond meal, sugar and baking powder and stir until all ingredients are wet. Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake for one hour.

Serve this cake with just a little bit of cream poured over the top. It is delicious warm as well as cold, in this cooler weather I warm mine in the microwave a little before digging in.

These two cakes are delicious, they make for perfect afternoon tea. Fresh and fruity, and a great way to enliven the kitchen when you're cooped up inside, hiding away from the dismal winter weather. The second cake in particular does take quite a while to prepare, but the boiling oranges filled my kitchen with a lovely sweet smell, and while my cake baked I listened to these sweet young things, their Fleet Foxes cover warms my heart. Play it on repeat for a little while, they're magic.