Meringue is a strange concoction. Light and fluffy like a marshmallow but with a crisp, browned exterior. It’s typically found on top of a lemon pie but can also be found on key lime, coconut cream, or even chocolate pie. So versatile, and yet a little tricky to get just right. We’ve made Lemon Meringue pies before, and there are basically three pitfalls:
1) The Meringue Shrinks – If you don’t “attach” it to the crust, as it cools, the meringue will recede towards the center of the pie.
2) The Curd is runny – yeah, self-explanatory.
3) The Meringue Weeps – After a day or so, these little brown caramel tasting drops of liquid can form on top of the meringue. Unsightly, but still just as tasty.
Here’s the recipe we used, which seemed to nip these three problems in the bud.
We had some extra pie dough from Thanksgiving that we saved in the freezer, so we just defrosted that the day before and pre-baked this pie shell. Pre-baking pie shells is kind of weird. You have to weigh the crust down with beans while it bakes. BEANS!
For the filling, you start with water, sugar, and cornstarch (Damn you, King Corn!). Heat it slowly, whisking constantly, and it turns into a jelly-like texture (like what you would find in a jelly doughnut). It’s pretty cool to see this transformation.
Then you add lemon juice and egg yolks to make the custard. The lemon juice here is part from fresh, and part from frozen lemon juice cubes! We’re so thrifty, yo! Speaking of thrifty, of the 8 eggs that go into this recipe, you only need four of the whites… so we’re freezing the other four (witness the 3 bowls pictured above.)
We strained it through a colander to get it nice and smooth.
Then it goes in the refrigerator to cool down completely. We could have stopped here and had a simple lemon curd pie. But you really need the meringue to help cut down on the tartness of the lemon. Plus, it makes it look extra fancy. The Saran wrap prevent a skin from forming while the pie cools.
To make the meringue, you whip the egg whites that were leftover from the yolks we put in the filling. You also make a syrup out of water and sugar and add it slowly to the egg whites. This gives them a very glossy and stiff texture. Its kind of precarious because you’re essentially adding really hot syrup into a running mixer.
So glossy!
It also turns into a MOUNTAIN of egg whites.
I smoothed it down and made it look pretty. Notice the artful photography with the reflection in the mixer bowl.
The key here is to make sure the egg whites firmly touch the edges of the pie crust to prevent it from shrinking over time. If it shrinks, it will look like an island of meringue in the middle of your pie (not very attractive).
It only takes 6-8 minutes in the oven to brown the meringue. Can you believe how awesome that looks? You can’t, can you?
Looks like a mouse took off with a piece of this pie! (The mouse appears to be in the background)
1) The Meringue Shrinks – If you don’t “attach” it to the crust, as it cools, the meringue will recede towards the center of the pie.
2) The Curd is runny – yeah, self-explanatory.
3) The Meringue Weeps – After a day or so, these little brown caramel tasting drops of liquid can form on top of the meringue. Unsightly, but still just as tasty.
Here’s the recipe we used, which seemed to nip these three problems in the bud.
We had some extra pie dough from Thanksgiving that we saved in the freezer, so we just defrosted that the day before and pre-baked this pie shell. Pre-baking pie shells is kind of weird. You have to weigh the crust down with beans while it bakes. BEANS!
For the filling, you start with water, sugar, and cornstarch (Damn you, King Corn!). Heat it slowly, whisking constantly, and it turns into a jelly-like texture (like what you would find in a jelly doughnut). It’s pretty cool to see this transformation.
Then you add lemon juice and egg yolks to make the custard. The lemon juice here is part from fresh, and part from frozen lemon juice cubes! We’re so thrifty, yo! Speaking of thrifty, of the 8 eggs that go into this recipe, you only need four of the whites… so we’re freezing the other four (witness the 3 bowls pictured above.)
We strained it through a colander to get it nice and smooth.
Then it goes in the refrigerator to cool down completely. We could have stopped here and had a simple lemon curd pie. But you really need the meringue to help cut down on the tartness of the lemon. Plus, it makes it look extra fancy. The Saran wrap prevent a skin from forming while the pie cools.
To make the meringue, you whip the egg whites that were leftover from the yolks we put in the filling. You also make a syrup out of water and sugar and add it slowly to the egg whites. This gives them a very glossy and stiff texture. Its kind of precarious because you’re essentially adding really hot syrup into a running mixer.
So glossy!
It also turns into a MOUNTAIN of egg whites.
I smoothed it down and made it look pretty. Notice the artful photography with the reflection in the mixer bowl.
The key here is to make sure the egg whites firmly touch the edges of the pie crust to prevent it from shrinking over time. If it shrinks, it will look like an island of meringue in the middle of your pie (not very attractive).
It only takes 6-8 minutes in the oven to brown the meringue. Can you believe how awesome that looks? You can’t, can you?
Looks like a mouse took off with a piece of this pie! (The mouse appears to be in the background)
No comments:
Post a Comment