A Buttery Biscuit Base, Smooth Lemon Cheesecake Filling, and an Italian Meringue make this No-Bake Lemon Meringue Cheesecake the perfect Dessert & Showstopper!
Blitz the biscuits in a food processor to a fine crumb, add the melted butter and pulse a few times until it is combined well.
Tip into a 8″/20cm Deep Springform Tin, or a 9″/23cm Tart Tin and press down firmly – chill in the refrigerator whilst you do the rest!
Cheesecake Filling
With an electric mixer (I used my KitchenAid) Mix the Cream Cheese and Icing Sugar together until smooth, it’ll only take a few seconds.
Whilst whisking slowly, pour in the liquid double cream and continue to whip on a medium-high speed until it is starting to thicken.
Once it’s starting to thicken, add in the lemon juice and continue to whip till very thick. If you are using food colouring, add it in now too!
Spread onto the biscuit base and spread evenly. Leave to set in the fridge, covered, for 5-6 hours, or preferably overnight.
To Decorate
Pour the sugar and the water into a heavy-based saucepan and bring to boil, stir it occasionally with a wooden spoon. When the mixture starts to boil monitor the temperature until it reaches 120C (Firm Ball Stage) with a sugar thermometer!
When the mixture is heating up and boiling, if any sugar splashes up the side of the pan, brush the sides with a pastry brush and cold water to get rid of it – this will stop the mixture crystallising and messing up!
Whilst the mixture is starting to get towards the temperature whisk the egg whites in your electric stand mixer! When the sugar syrup has reached the temperature and the egg whites are at stiff peaks start to pour the sugar syrup onto the egg whites at the edge of the bowl whilst still whisking – make sure you do this slowly so its a constant trickle of sugar syrup so that the egg whites stay smooth!
Continue to whisk throughout whilst the sugar syrup is pouring in, and after its all whisked in continue to whisk the mixture fast and on a high speed for 5-7 minutes until the mixture is smooth, and has cooled down.
Remove the set cheesecake from the tin, dollop the meringue on top, and then blowtorch lightly, or flash under a hot grill to brown the edges of the meringue!
If you don’t have a blow torch, use the grill setting on your oven, and carefully put the cheesecake underneath to toast slightly! (If you are doing this, it might be easier to keep the cheesecake in the tin till after you have toasted it under the grill)
If you don’t want to or don’t feel confident enough to make an Italian Meringue then you can do a normal Meringue using the 4 Large egg whites, and 200g of Caster sugar and mix like you would a normal meringue – blowtorch or flash under the grill in the same way as above to brown!
If you are doing the Italian Meringue – When pouring the sugar syrup onto the egg whites try to do this more towards the edge of the bowl so the heat isn’t going directly into the largest part of the egg white mixture!
This recipe does make a reasonable amount of meringue – I piled all of mine on as I wanted to use it on this, but you can easily pipe a few separate meringues if you wished! I wouldn’t recommend reducing the meringue amount any more as it might not work as well!