Something I threw together for sweets tonight, a careless version of lemon meringue. Makes enough for two, or one very generous serving. It’s a bit touch-and-go since I kind of did it spontaneously and didn’t even measure anything so it depends how experienced/adventurous you are as to whether or not you reckon you could make this work. Have a play.

Lazy Lemon Meringue for One
Lemony part:
Butter – it filled maybe just under ¼ of the mug when melted
Juice and Zest of ½ small lemon, (1/4 cup juice, 1 tsp zest?)
Sugar- bout half volume of melted butter
1 Tbsp Plain flour
1 Tbsp Self-Raising flour
1 egg
Milk – filled the mug almost the rest of the way up


Meringue Part:
1 egg white
Sugar (ideally castor sugar)- a few Tbsp


1.) Put butter in a mug or small (one-serve size) microwave safe casserole dish and microwave 30 seconds or so to melt. Add sugar, mix to dissolve. Add lemon juice and zest, combine.

I used dairy free margarine due to allergies so I’m wondering perhaps whether with butter you might need to be careful to add the juice slowly while whisking with a fork to prevent curdling?

2.) Add flour, combine. Incorporate egg and milk.

Again, be aware of curdling and add things a bit at a time if necessary. (I use soy milk which is less problematic in that way).

3.) If cooking for two, pour half the mixture into another mug. Microwave on LOW 15 minutes. Meanwhile, beat egg white in a small, clean mixing bowl with electric beaters until soft peaks form. Add sugar gradually while continuing to beat. Beat until stiff peaks form.

This won’t take the whole 15 minutes so you can watch tv and work on this in the ads or something.

Preheat oven to 200C.

4.) Top lemony stuff with meringue stuff.

Here’s the thing. One egg white makes a decent whack of meringue. So what I did was dump the lemon stuff into an oven safe bowl and spread it out a little, top with meringue mix and blob at it with the back of a spoon to raise it in parts and make a spiky swirl pattern.
But I also quite like the idea of leaving it in the mug and topping it with meringue too, which you’d be lucky to pull off without having leftover mix (which you could just eat while you’re waiting for the meringue to brown). Oh dear. Am I being too honest here?

If you’re going for two serves, I’d say the quantity is fine to top two mugs, or you could use two bowls, or use one, and dish out another serve with half of it afterwards.

In any case, top your lemon curd with meringue and stick it in the oven until its tinged with golden brown.

It won’t take long I promise. Even when you sit on the floor in the front of the oven and watch through the door intently chanting “I want pudding I want pudding I want pudding”.

Hope this is useful to someone.

Love and cuddles, Ellie. xx

Question...is there some kind of substitute for the meringue, since I hate meringue? Thanks

Sorry about the world cup.

Well that depends what it is about the meringue that you hate.

You could just melt marshmellow on it, but it's a similar egg-based thing just less crispy.

Or if you want to make it into a crumble you could combine equal amounts of flour and sugar and rub a little butter through it, sprinkle that on top, and bake (or grill) just the same.

If you're wanting to be really decandant you could let it cool and combine melted chocolate with some whipped cream and put that on top, and bycott the baking - but now we're getting into ingredients less likely to be on-hand.

Or heck just top the thing with cream or icecream. Or both.

I think original listing of ingredients is a little too much sugar for the meringue too. It really doesn't need much, too sweet is overpowering. I like it mellow so you can taste the lemon.

You know what else, I made this again tonight and realised that both times I didn'tactually use lemon juice, as such, but actual lemon, including the pulp. Don't know how much that matters. I have a big fat lemon in the fridge and I just keep carving off a slice at a time and using the rind and flesh of that for this.

Not that I eat sweets every night.

I could care less about the world cup. "We" can get beat all you want. (I take it that's what happened? Meh). Yes I know, I'm terribly un-Australian for not being into sports.

Just in case you don't know, if you're doing the choclate whipped cream thing, you can't just mix melted chocolate with whipped cream. It'll curdle. What you do is get thickened cream, and semi-whip it with electric beaters. Have your chocolate already melted and slightly cooled, add it slowly to your cream while continuing to whip. You can also make chocolate cream the same way using cocoa mixed with sugar.

xx

Oo, and one more improvement. If you're having maringue. I found tonight the lemon part gets by ok on just an egg yolk, doesn't need a whole egg. So then you can use the white for meringue, without having to use 1 1/2 eggs.

Couldnt you substitute maringue with a lot of salt

Just put a bunch of salt on the top instead of meringue? HMM. I'm not entirely sure. Try that and tell me how it goes.

Ellie, everything you typed sounds awesome. Do you deliver?

Hehehehehe... salt huh. Well...

Ten points for thinking outside the box. No one ever did anything different by doing everything the same.

I don't deliver, but I do aim to always be very hospitable to all manner of guests, expected or otherwise.

hay Ellie, I am a exc. chef at a country club and it sounds like you havea bit of food no how, are you a chef or cook?

Aww nice of you to say that.

Naw, just a gal who enjoys experimenting. Was married and not working for some 6 years and spent half my time entertaining and the other half "practising." There were good and bad cooking experiences, lol. But it's all part of the learning curve. Funds and opportunities are scarce these days but lifstyle variety just adds to the need for diversity and is all part of the fun.