NOW BAKING: LEMON MERINGUE PIE

With our current situation of social distancing, and “safe at home” orders, I find myself with a lot of idle time on my hands. And, in an effort to keep myself occupied, I decided to try my hand at baking (not something I usually do).  I have a lemon tree in my backyard, which is giving us a lot of lemons (he he) this year. So, my daughter and I decided to put them to good use and bake a Lemon Meringue pie (for the first time in my life)! Easy! Right? I searched the internet far and wide to find that perfect recipe that a novice like me could handle. Additionally, I wanted to use ingredients that I had on hand and avoid things like cornstarch (not something I keep in my pantry) and cream of tartar (I didn’t even know what that was – I do now). I ended up using three (3) recipes, which I meshed together to make my own creation.

LET'S BEGIN

What is a Lemon Meringue Pie? It’s basically a pie crust filled with lemon curd and topped with light and fluffy concoction we call Meringue. Nice and easy, right? Well, it really was.

1. The Crust

I happened to have some pie crusts from Trade Joe’s in my freezer at home. I used it to make my crust and followed the directions on the packaging to do what’s called a blind bake. Thankfully I had a bag of beans on hand. This process was a bit time consuming, so if you don’t want to drag out your pie making activity, you can use a ready-made store bought one.

2. Lemon Curd

To make my lemon curd, I followed the recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman website.

Image from © 2007–2020, The Pioneer Woman

All you need are 5 simple ingredients: lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, butter and egg yolks.

This recipe takes about to 10 minutes to prep and 15 minutes to cook.

• For complete recipe go to: How to Make Lemon Curd

NOTE: The recipe calls for curd to be chilled in the fridge for a couple of hours, however the Meringue recipe I found (below) says to use a hot filling, so I skipped the chilling in the fridge part of the process.

3. The Meringue

This one took the longest to find, but finally I came across a nice and easy option on eggs.ca.

Image from © 2020 Egg Farmers of Canada.

All you need for this one is: 3 egg whites, ¼ cup of sugar, and ½ teaspoon of lemon juice. It takes about 10 mins to prep, and 5 mins to cook.

Yes, originally the recipe calls for cream of tartar, but if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, to the notes section, the very first line says that you can substitute for lemon juice. That is exactly what I did, and my results were finger-licking amazing!

• For complete recipe go to: Basic Meringue

NOTE: If you are making meringue for the first time, like me, do read notes at the bottom of the page, as they provide very useful info that will help you get great results.

4. The Pie

So, a couple of hours later, my pie was ready to eat! Not bad for a first time ever baking a pie, right? It wasn’t the prettiest looking pie, but it was delish! And meringue was light and fluffy!

Hope you enjoy your results and share photos of your pies! Just post to Instagram and add #XCVILemonPie

Happy Baking!

Lisa S.

XCVI Brand Manager (currently working remotely from home)