Lemon curd, meringues, cream, Greek yoghurt. You actually can’t go wrong with this recipe and it can as easy or complicated as you feel like being. I felt like being complicated, so I made the lemon curd and meringues myself (I drew the line at making own Greek yoghurt, however). I’ll assume that you feel like being a Nigella too, so will give you the complicated version, but you could always use bought lemon curd and meringues. Nigella and I will try not to judge.

Lemon meringue ice cream

(adapted slightly from Nigella Lawson, How to Eat, 1998)

For the lemon curd:

lemons, 4

free range eggs, 2

free range egg yolks, 2  (save the whites for the meringues)

caster sugar, 150g

unsalted butter, 100g

Remove the zest and juice the lemons. In a medium-sized pot, beat the egg yolks and sugar with a whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Add the butter, lemon juice and zest and heat gently over a low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and becomes smooth and silky. This makes just slightly more than you’ll need for the ice cream, so having a sneaky spoonful or two is probably necessary.

For the meringues:

egg whites, 2

salt, a pinch

caster sugar, 115g

Heat oven to 130˚C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt in a large bowl until very stiff. Beat in about half of the sugar and continue beating until the mixture becomes glossy. Add the remaining sugar and fold through with a metal spoon. Dollop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking tray – whatever size you fancy, just bear in mind that larger meringues will take longer to cook. Bake for 2-3 hours and leave in the turned-off oven overnight to dry out. Store in an airtight container until you’re ready to use them.

For the ice cream:

cream, 600ml

Greek yoghurt, 225g

lemon curd, 320g  (I used a bit more – extra lemon curd never hurts)

lemon juice and zest, of two lemons

meringue nests, 6 (I used all of the meringues that the above recipe made, as like lemon curd, extra meringue is no hardship)

Line a container (I used a loaf tin) with a piece of plastic wrap that overlaps edges of the container; this will make it easy to remove the ice cream once frozen. Before lining, spray the container with nonstick baking spray; this will make the wrap stick to the sides.

In a large bowl, whisk the cream until fairly stiff and fold through the yoghurt. Squeeze the lemon juice into the lemon curd and mix together, then add this to the cream and yoghurt mixture along with the zest. Crumble the meringues into various sized pieces – not too small or they’ll dissolve. Spoon into your lined tin, pull the overlapping pieces of plastic wrap over so that they cover the ice cream and pop in the freezer. Leave overnight. About half an hour before you serve the ice cream, remove from the freezer and place in fridge. Slice the ice cream into wedges using a hot knife.