Heres a little show stopper. It takes a bit of time but well worth it.
The Ingredients:
Short crust pastry
8oz plain white flour
4oz cold unsalted butter, cubed
Small handful of lavender flower heads
Zesty Lemon curd
4 large lemons, zested and juiced
100g unsalted butter, melted
Rhubarb Jam
6 stalks of rhubarb
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
200g of caster sugar
Meringue Topping
6 medium free-range egg whites
1 tablespoon of rose water
The Make:
Firstly, sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Then add the cubed butter using fingertips until you reach a fine breadcrumb consistency.
Now add the sugar and lavender to the mix and using either your hands or a dough hook on a mixer, mix into a firm dough by adding the egg yolk and a splash of cold water.
Wrap the dough in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using.
Preheat the oven to 190C and grease a 9in fluted loose-bottomed tin. Then place the tin onto a baking tray.
Roll out the pastry big enough to generously fit into a bun tin, leaving excess pastry falling over sides.
Line the bun tin individually with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Ensure greaseproof paper falls over edge of each rim. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the pastry are pale golden and dried out. Remove the paper and beans from pie. Now trim the excess pastry using a sharp knife. Lower the oven to 150C and bake for a further 5 minutes.
Now in a large mixing bowl start preparing the lemon curd by mixing together the sugar and corn flour with a splash of cold water to make a paste.
Add 60ml of water and the lemon zest to a pan and bring to the boil.
Slowly pour the hot liquid into the corn flour mix, whisking until smooth.
Whisk in the egg yolks, lemon juice and butter and then pour mixture back into pan.
Cook on a low heat, stirring constantly until mixture has thickened to a curd consistency. Pour into the baked pastry case, spread evenly and leave to cool slightly. Chop rhubarb stalks into chunks and stew down with sugar and vanilla. When it has begun to look like jam, pass it through a sieve to get rid of the syrup. You can keep the syrup for porridge or a glaze on a game dish. Now remove jam from sieve to a bowl.
Fill each case with a spoon of lemon curd. Place in the fridge to set. Once set top with a spoon of the rhubarb jam.
To prepare the meringue, whisk the egg whites and rose water in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks. Slowly add the caster sugar a spoon at a time whisking well and at a high speed. Transfer the meringue into a piping bag and pipe the meringue on top of the rhubarb and curd.
Bake in the oven at 160C for around 15-20 minutes until the meringue is crisp on the outside and the inside a soft marshmallow.
Enjoy.
Married with Cauldron 