Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon is such a versatile fruit. Lemonade, Lemon Squares, Lemon juice on certain mexican dishes, the list is endless. One such lemon dish I had often growing up was Lemon Meringue Pie. There really is nothing like fresh homemade pie.

  Making a pie crust is pretty simple, especially the way my mother used to (a family secret). It's such a simple recipe, but the crust is such an incredible thing. Unfortunately I can't share the recipe, but there are dozens of other pie crust recipes to be gleamed from a simple Google search.

This is the one time I deviated from my premise of 'always from scratch'. I'm slightly ashamed to admit I used a canned store-bought lemon pie filling. My sincerest apologies.

There are many ways to make a meringue, but I used an old recipe. A recipe to be found in a Betty Crocker cookbook back from the late 60s/early 70s.

(Ingredients)

9 in. Pie Crust
2 Cans of Lemon Pie Filling
3 Egg Whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
6 tbs Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract



Meringue is a tricky, tricky thing to make. Literally a speck of yolk in your egg whites will ruin the meringue. Separating egg whites isn't really complicated. I would break the egg in half, then pour the yolk between the 2 shell halves until all the egg white was separated from the yolk. Another way is to crack the egg into a bowl and scoop the yolk out gently with a spoon. Whatever way you prefer, separate your eggs, and put them into your electric mixer. pour in your cream of tartar, and really beat those eggs. slowly increase the speed until you're at the highest you can go without it spitting out of the bowl, and slowly add your tablespoons of sugar. After the sugar is added, simple beat it for awhile. Make sure not to underbeat. It will take probably about 3-5 minutes of mixing before stiff peaks form. Once it's ready, spread it on your pie crust already filled with the pie filling, and spread it all around. Make sure to cover it very well, don't let any lemon show anywhere.  Make it fancy any way you choose (a easy way to decorate it is to take a spoon, and push the back of it into the meringue gently, and lift it back out. This will form little peaks in the meringue), then stick it in your 400 oven for about 10 minutes. What we're trying to do here is just brown the meringue a little bit.

Make sure it is well-chilled before you serve it. A lemon meringue pie is such an amazing dessert. The combination of flavors is truly delicious.


Pic, as always, forthcoming!