This week we go back in time to some retro baking, with two desserts that have been beautifying menus for decades. Poached meringue and lemon curd are the kind of concoctions that modern food aficionados may scoff at, but they’ve stood the test of time for a reason. As well as being light and delicious, they are very simple to cook and will make good use of your everyday kitchen equipment.
For the lemon curd fingers, we are talking only seven simple ingredients. Crushed digestive biscuits form the base in the same fashion as with a cheesecake recipe, and it can all be assembled in a standard cake tin. The curd mix is essentially an emulsion of sweetened and lightly cooked eggs, thickened with cold butter. The addition of lemon juice binds the proteins and thickens the mixture, while the lemon zest offers the beautiful floral notes of a citrus in season. If you can find them, unwaxed Mediterranean lemons bring this to a whole new level. In fact, this is the essence of great cooking, showcasing ingredients at their peak in a simple and approachable way. The Amalfi lemon is the first to come to mind here, essentially the Rolls-Royce of citrus fruit in Europe.
Once the curd mix is brought together and the butter incorporated, it gets baked in a low oven to cook the eggs and set the mixture. Follow the timings here – too little time in the oven and you’ll have undercooked egg soup. Cook it too long and it’ll be sweet and sour scrambled eggs, and not in a clever way. Once a soft wobble is achieved the whole tin needs a sleepover in the fridge before slicing into fingers the following day. This is a handy one to throw on the table with a cup of tea or, if you’re really feeling festive, with a glass of something stronger in the sun.
The second recipe uses the conventional steamer in a manner that doesn’t involve cooking the “you know what” out of vegetables. These steamers were a permanent fixture in our childhood home, with two busy working parents, where the aim was clearly ease and speed without turning away from nutrition. Air fryers are the current trend, but the steamer shall rise again. As will our meringues – egg whites and plenty of sugar, whisked together with a hand mixer. A mix of cornflour and vinegar is added at the end to stabilise the mixture once it rises. Technically, the meringues should be cooked on a pot of milk, but that creates too much waste and mess for my liking. This method offers greater consistency and less mess, which is always a winner in this house. Topped with a chilled vanilla custard and seasonal fruit, this dessert proves that perfection is rarely complex. It just relies on good technique and even better ingredients.