Hi everyone! Today I'm going to share a recipe for one of my favorite desserts, Lemon Meringue Pie! In fact, I might even go so far as to say that Lemon Meringue is my favorite kind of pie. Yes indeedy, my heart just pitter patters over the combination of graham cracker crust, tart lemon filling, and pillows of fluffy, sweet, lightly caramelized meringue. So good.
To get started, you'll need a crust. Graham cracker crust to be exact. Here's how to make it:
Graham Cracker Crust- Makes 1 pie shell
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2c crushed graham crackers (I used gluten free, as usual).
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp melted butter
1. Preheat your oven to 325°F
2. In a food processor, process the graham crackers and sugar until fine.
3. Pour the butter over the crumbs, and pulse a few times until just combined.
4. Pour the graham cracker mixture out into a pie pan. Non-stick makes life a little easier when you're serving, but any old pan should work just fine.
5. Press the crumbs into the pan forming a crust. My super special trick for doing this without making myself crazy is to use a measuring cup to press the crumbs up the sides of the pan. I find it's approximately 90% more effective than using my fingers. While you're at it, use it to press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan, too!
6. Bake the crust for 5-10 minutes until fragrant, then remove from the oven and cool.
Now that we've got our crust, we can move on to the pie itself, glorious Lemon Meringue Pie!
Lemon Meringue Pie
Ingredients:
- 1 prepared graham cracker crust (see above!)
- For Filling:
- 1 c sugar
- 5 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 c water
- 1/2 c milk
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 c fresh lemon juice
- 2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest (do your zesting first and your juicing second! I forget all the time, but zesting first makes life ten times easier, promise.)
- For Meringue:
- 4 large egg whites (ah, how convenient, we just separated the egg yolks from 4 eggs for the filling!)
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 c sugar
1. Prepare your pie crust and let it cool, then preheat the oven the 350°F
2. In a heavy sauce pan, whisk together the cornstarch and sugar, then add the milk and water, and whisk until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together your egg yolks. Whisk whisk whisk!
3. Cook the milk mixture over medium heat whisking constantly until it comes to a boil.
4. Pour approximately 1 cup of the milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking the yolks constantly while you do this. This process tempers the eggs so you don't end up with little bits of cooked egg throughout your filling. Gross.
5. Return the yolk mixture to the milk mixture, and simmer the mixture, whisking constantly for 3 minutes.
6. Remove from heat, add lemon juice, lemon zest, and butter and whisk to combine. Once this is well combined, cover the filling (the filling, not the pan!)with saran wrap, and set aside.
7. In a large mixing bowl, combine the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar, then beat using an electric mixer (or by hand if you're a masochist), until the egg whites hold soft peaks.
8. Slowly stream in the sugar while beating the egg whites, and continue beating until the egg whites hold stiff peaks.
Components complete! It's assembly time!
9. Remove the saran wrap and pour the lemon filling into your pie shell. Make sure to spread it evenly in the shell.
10. Next you're going to pile your meringue on top of the lemon filling and spread that shit out. You'll want to be sure to have the meringue meet the edges of the pie shell. Then once it's evenly spread, make it pretty! If you were extra fancy, you could totally pipe the meringue on top.
11. It's baking time! Bake that pretty pie in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the meringue is golden. Once it's done, remove it from the oven and let it cool. After it's cooled be sure to refrigerate it because, ya know, eggs.
As you can see, Lemon Meringue Pie is clearly the dreamboat of the pie world. Let's take a closer look:
Ah yes, crunchy graham cracker crust, tart gooey lemon filling, and sweet meringue so fluffy you kind of want to take a nap on it.
I hope you love it as much as I do!
Til next time!
-Becca
