Recipe: Easy as Pie Fillings: Lemon Meringue

My Mom was a really good home cook and baker and I still use a lot of her recipes. I have no idea where my Mom got her Lemon Meringue Pie recipe. Many of her recipes were so old they would ask for ingredients we don't use so readily these days (like using lard in the cookies). Some updates to these have been made.

Since the first time I remember her using the recipe card, it was hand-written, stained and yellowed. My own recipe card for the same recipe is also hand-written, stained and become just as yellowed through the years. But let's face it, the really messed up cards in your recipe file are the ones you truly love and use. 

Mom's Lemon Meringue Pie

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

You will use one pie crust, baked and cooled. Fit the crust into the pie-tin , pierce it with a fork to keep the bubbles down and bake the crust about twenty minutes in at 400 degrees. Let it cool until warm to the touch. While it is cooling you can make the filling.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1¼ Cup of granulated sugar 
• (C&H is still better than most because it doesn't have corn or beet sugars.) 
• 6 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups of boiling water
• The rind of one lemon
• 4 Tablespoons butter (the original wanted margarine. Blecch!)
• 3 egg yolks (reserve the egg whites in a separate bowl)
• ½ Cup lemon juice 
• Depending on the time of the year you might have to use what you have handy. Some bottled juices have a high acid content, and if you like a bit of bite these are fine all year around.  
• Fresh is usually better. Buy your lemon if it feels heavy for its size. This usually tells you whether the lemon is fresh or not. Scraping the peal with your thumbnail and smelling it can also tell you how long that lemon might have been around.

Whisk sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Add the water and rind (just as it is) to the pan and cook over medium heat (stirring all of the time so it doesn't lump) until nice and thick. Add the butter and stir it in. 

Mix the lemon juice and the egg yolks in a bowl. Add about one half cup of of the hot sugar mixture in this bowl and it stir it in well. Then pour the egg mixture into the sugar mixture and blend it all together well. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and bake for ten minutes. 

While it is baking you can make your meringue.

The critical thing to remember when making meringue is that your bowl, whisp, egg beater. or whatever utensil you use, must be completely grease and fat free. Any oily stuff will stop the meringue from stiffening and this includes any trace of yoke that might have snuck through when they we separated. Here's all you will need:

• 3 Egg whites (no joke - no yoke)
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar

Beat the three egg whites until soft peaks form when you lift the beater. While continuing to beat the  egg whites gradually add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice. Continue beating and add 3 Tablespoons of granulated sugar. Continue beating until stiff peaks form when you rise the beaters.

Note: If you wish to you can double the meringue recipe to get a taller pie, but it isn't at all necessary.

Now we put the pie together.

Remove the pie from the oven, then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees. 

Quickly spread the meringue on top of the cooked pie without over working it.  Pile it high as you can and swirl your spoon to make pretty swoops and swirls. Make sure to seal the meringue and the edge of the crust or it will shrink away from the edges and the pie won't serve well. 

Pop it back into the oven and bake for another 18 minutes.

You can serve it warm, and some people do, or you can serve it cold, as is the proper thing to do. But store the pie in the refrigerator.

The filling it very versatile. You can use it as a stand alone item, something of a lemon custard (but not a custard), or you might put it over vanilla wafers and use whipped cream to make a quick parfait. I have used it as a cake filling as well. One of our favorite summer cakes uses this filling and a whipped cream frosting. A nice light summer treat.

Enjoy!