Buttercup Lemon Pie

Wotchers!

There’s many things that can catch my eye for a recipe: a star ingredient, an intriguing pairing of flavours, a favourite element, an unusual twist, even a backstory…

This week it’s a combination of lemon, pastry and backstory.

I love lemon and pastry – but not so much the meringue that so usually accompanies them. So this recipe looked just up my alley!

It comes from the US, and is one of the signature pies from the tea-rooms of a small chain of department stores in Virginia & South Carolina that is sadly no-longer with us.

The Miller & Rhoads Tea Room in Roanoke was well-known for its delicious pies. The Buttercup Lemon Pie was one of the most popular, and the housewives of the town frequently popped in on a Friday to collect one in preparation for their weekend dinner parties.

The name probably comes from the glorious yellow colour of both the filling and the crust, because there are no buttercups in this pie. Don’t be getting any ideas about scattering in a few flowers  to ‘improve’ this recipe either. Buttercups are toxic. Don’t do that.

Back to the pie. Not only does it get its great lemon flavouring from the zest of lemons, it also has whole pieces of lemon flesh inside. These segments break down during cooking, so you don’t actually see them in the finished pie, but in terms of taste, they sure do bring the zing!

I also tried this as – admittedly rather generous – individual pies, tweaked to resemble buttercups, using my 10cm mini-Victoria sponge cake tins. The tins have a small lip to the edge, which helps greatly in forming a good seal between the bottom pastry and the lid. You CAN get all the pastry required from one batch of cornflour shortcrust, but I made 2 batches and used one for the bases and one for the lids, for sake of ease, and froze the remainder for another day. These quantities make 8 x 10cm individual pies.

Buttercup Lemon Pie

115g butter, softened
300g caster sugar
40g plain flour
½ tsp. salt
5 large eggs – divided
3 small lemons (or 2 large) –  zested & supremed
1 batch cornflour shortcrust pastry (2 if making individual pies)
caster sugar for glazing

• Make the cornflour pastry. For the large pie (see below for small pie notes), cut off 1/3 of the pastry and roll out thinly for a lid. Roll out the larger piece for the base of the pie. I prefer to roll it larger than required, then lay it onto baking parchment, and then lift both parchment and pastry and drop it into a 20cm square baking tin, thereby reducing the possibility of accidentally tearing the pastry. Cover both lid and base with cling film (to prevent drying out) and chill in the fridge until required.
• Zest the lemons, then section out the flesh. This short video demonstrates how to supreme citrus fruit. Keep the juice and the flesh and discard the membranes and any pips.
• Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
• For the filling, whisk together butter, sugar, flour and salt until smooth.
• Whisk together four of the eggs plus the remaining yolk, and beat into the butter mixture until very thick.
• Stir in lemon zest, juice and lemon flesh.
• Pour into the prepared pie base and brush the edges of the pastry with water to help seal the pastry lid onto the base.
• Slide the pastry lid onto the pie and press the edges together. Fold the edges under/over as liked and crimp.
• Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg white and sprinkle with caster sugar.
• Use a sharp, thin knife to poke 4 or 5 holes in the lid to let out steam.
• Bake for 40 minutes, turning the pie around after 20 minutes to ensure even colouring.
• Allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack. For best slicing results, allow to cool completely before cutting.
• For small pies,
  • make 2 batches of pastry and use one batch to like the tins and the other batch for the lids.
  • Chill pastry while making the filling.
  • Make filling as above.
  • Fill the pies as follows. Each pie will take 100g of filling mixture. Put the filling into a jug, put your pie on the scales and pour 100g-worth into each pie, checking that a few of the lemon pieces go into each one.
  • Moisten the edges of the pastry with water, the cover with a pastry lid. Press the edges together, but don’t crimp – keep the edges flat.
  • Trim any excess pastry by cutting round the edge of the tins with the back of a knife. Using the cutting side of the blade will scratch and possibly remove the non-stick coating of your tins.
  • To shape the pies into buttercups, take a wooden cocktail stick or similar and make five indents in the rim of the pastry by drawing it inwards to suggest the outline of petals.
  • Brush with egg-white and sprinkle with caster sugar as above.
  • Using a sharp, thin blade, make two slashes in each ‘petal’ to let out steam. See photos for guide.
  • Sprinkle a pinch of sesame seeds in the middle of each pie to imitate stamens.
  • Bake for about 25 minutes, until the pastry is cooked through and golden brown.