Ideally, Prepare the dough a day ahead. Mix the flour, hazelnut powder, sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl.

Cut the soft butter into small cubes and add it to the preparation. Mix with your fingertips without kneading too much. You should get a sandy texture.

Make a well, add the egg and continue to mix lightly.

Form a ball of dough, crush it a little, then film it and place it in the refrigerator.

Take it out 30 minutes before rolling it out to warm the dough.

You can prepare the curd a day ahead or not. Grate the zest of half a lemon and squeeze the juice from the lemons.

In a salad bowl, vigorously beat the eggs with the sugar and zests.

Dilute the cornstarch with water.

Heat the lemon juice in a saucepan. Once it boils, pour it in the bowl with the egg-sugar mixture, mixing well.

Then, incorporate the cornstarch, whisk vigorously and put back in the saucepan on a low to medium heat.

After about 5 minutes (more or less), when the mixture starts to thicken well and has the texture of a thick cream, turn off the heat.

Roll out the dough on baking paper until you obtain a circle dough about 3 mm thick. Check that the surface is sufficient to fill your pie tin and cover the edges of the tin (I use a 25 cm diameter tin).

Slide the baking paper into the tin and press lightly on the dough at the edges.

Cut off any excess dough with a sharp knife and prick the dough with a fork.

Cover the bottom with baking paper and place dried beans or baking balls. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 180°C. After 10 minutes, remove the baking paper and weights and leave to cook for another 10 minutes. The dough should be lightly browned and harden.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

When the dough has cooled down, pour the lemon cream over it with a pastry bag or spatula and smooth well to obtain a nice flat surface.

Pour the egg whites in a salad bowl with a pinch of salt.

Then, make a syrup: pour 75 g of sugar in a small saucepan then pour the water over it. Do not mix and avoid putting sugar on the edges of the pan.

Let the syrup heat up while monitoring the temperature.

At the same time, start beating the whites at low speed first, then gradually and regularly increase the speed of the mixer.

When the whites begin to take shape, add the remaining 25g of sugar. Continue beating until the syrup temperature reaches 118°C.

Then remove the syrup from the heat, and pour it delicately on the sides of your salad bowl (stop beating so as not to make a splash of hot syrup...).

Continue beating and gradually increase the speed from medium to maximum for about 10 minutes. The meringue will cool down like this. It should become shiny, and when you lift up a meringue-soaked whisk, it should form a kind of bird's beak and should not fall from the whisk. Set aside.

You can now finish assembling the pie: fill a pastry bag with the meringue and decorate the pie as you wish. Note that the quantities indicated in this recipe will not allow you to cover the whole pie but a little more than half of it (as on the cover photo). If you want to cover the pie completely, double the quantities.

Pass very quickly the flame of the blowtorch over the meringue to brown it slightly.

To finish, sprinkle some zest on the part of the pie not covered with meringue as well as some finely crushed hazelnuts.