**Lemon Pie** (mum-in-law's recipe) DELICIOUS! DELICIOUS!

Seriously delicious!

As we live in Thailand throughout the year I create a list of all the things I will eat (and do) when we visit home, Australia, for our holiday. Definitely in my top 3 eat list is my mother-in-law Sandy's Lemon Pie. I seriously LOVE this pie and literally wait all year for a slice (or 5!). So I was excited knowing that Sandy was coming to visit us here in Bangkok and now that I have a food blog I decided to challenge myself and ask Sandy to walk me through the recipe. Keep in mind that I have NEVER, EVER, made pastry from scratch before but how hard could it be...


Here's what you need for the pastry:
200g plain flour

Oscar inspecting the pastry and filling

130grams butter (room temperature)
70g caster sugar
1 egg

Here's what you need for the filling:
4 lemons zested
250ml fresh lemon juice (from the ones you zested)
9 eggs
375g caster sugar
300ml cream

Here's what you do: (I tried to take lots of photos to document my experience)

Prepare the pastry and filling first thing in the morning. I prepared everything at 7:30am and then cooked it later the same day at 7pm. As I live in Bangkok though the humidity is so bad at the moment that it was better for the pastry to be made early. You can use your hands or a processor to make the pastry. I used my KitchenAid, Sandy always uses her Magimix.

Pastry #1: 
Combine the sugar and flour mixture and then add the butter. After about 30 seconds mixing, add the egg. Combine ingredients until it has formed a smooth dough. Take out of the bowl and roll in to a ball. Cover with cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1-3 hours or overnight if you wish. It will feel like it has turned rock hard but that's ok. This is the easy part I discovered!

Love my juicer

Filling:
Zest and juice the lemons (this was my least favourite part). I was happy to bring out my awesome juicer that we picked up in Turkey. Mix the eggs, cream, sugar, juice and zest all together. I used the whisk component of my KitchenAid. Pour mixture in a tupperware container or keep in bowl and place in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Pastry/Filling #2:
It's now 6pm so pastry has been sitting in the fridge for about 10 hours. Preheat your oven to 160C and take out the pastry ball and lemon filling. Generously flour a surface on your kitchen bench and gently pat and roll your pastry. Use a floured rolling pin, start at the centre to roll the pastry out into a circular shape a bit bigger than your pie dish. You might have to stop regularly and piece the pastry back together on the side. Make sure it's not rolled too thin and keep adding flour under the pastry to stop it sticking.

Oh dear...

Now... the tricky part!!! Carefully pick up your pastry and line a deep pie dish. As you can see from the photo I need a lot of help in this department! What a mess! We had a good laugh, blamed it on the humidity and set about piecing the pastry back together again. I knew there was a reason I have never made pasty before!

Patched all up, looks great

If you're lucky then yours would have stayed together nicely and ended up looking like this photo to the right. Now that the pastry is covering the base and edges of the dish, line the base with baking paper and bake at 160C. I covered the baking paper with pie weights (ceramic balls - gift from Sandy). Bake the pastry for about 10minutes, but maybe less, check on it and once it is slightly brown take it out of the oven, discard the baking paper and store the pie weights.

Reduce the oven temperature to 150C. You might want to use a sieve to pour your filling through before baking. Sandy sometimes leaves the zest in but sometimes sifts it out, up to you. We poured it through a sieve first. Evenly pour the lemon filling around the pastry but not up to brim, leave about 3/4 cm gap or a bit more from the top. If you have left over filling pour these into greased ramekin bowls and bake at the same time. These can be crustless pies! Now....so super carefully carry the dish to the oven.

Bake the pie at 150C for approximately 45mins-1hr. Mine cooked faster than I thought, check it by gently pressing the centre. It should be spongy and rise back when pressed.

Take it out of the oven and serve with ice-cream or just cream. Seriously delicious and no where near as hard as I thought. I felt like a Masterchef contestant afterwards and so proud of myself! THANK YOU SANDY! xoxo

No leftovers - ever!

Breakfast Bacon & Egg *Pie*

Perfect breakfast treat

I've said this before but I love Donna Hay and her Fast, Fresh, Simple cookbook. It's just beautiful to look at plus the recipes are super easy to make. It makes a perfect gift or just a treat for yourself. One of the first recipes I bookmarked to try was the Bacon & Egg Pie. Now, it's not a pie. There is no pastry, but you can cook it in a pie tin and it stays together like a pie. I've made this previously for a Sunday breakfast and today I made it to welcome my husband's parents who are visiting us here in Thailand for the week. This is child and adult friendly and seriously easy and delicious!

*apologies about the photos, my main camera ran out of battery.

Ingredients

Here's what you need: (will make 4 *pies*)
6 rashes thinly sliced bacon. Take off the rind.
6 eggs
1 cup (240g) of creme fraiche (or sour cream)
2 tablespoons of flat parsley leaf (I used chives this time)






Here's what you do: 

Get all your ingredients out ready and turn the oven on to 180C. Use butter or spray to grease 4 pie tins or ramekin dishes. I used ceramic ramekin dishes as that's what I have in my cupboards. I also found that the pies pop straight of the ceramic dishes but stuck to the sides of my glass ramekin dish.

Ready to pop in the oven

Line the ramekin dish with the bacon strips (1.5 rashes fits around nicely) and gently push the bacon to the edges to keep it in place. Put the eggs, creme fraiche, parsley in a bowl and use a whisk to mix together. Keep whisking until all lumps from the creme fraiche disappear. Share out the mix evenly between your 4 dishes and then bake in the oven for 25minutes. The mix will rise quite high and look fluffy.

Take them out of the oven and using a table knife run along the edges to loosen any egg or bacon attached to the sides. If you used a ceramic dish or pie tin they should just pop out. If not, carefully work them out of the dish with the knife. Use an oven glove as the dish will be hot.

I served them on top of half a toasted english muffin and added a few strawberries. Enjoy!