8.15.2014

National Lemon Meringue Pie Day....



Yes, it is!

Aug. 15th is the official Lemon Meringue Pie Day!

I made a couple for my husband to take to work to share with his office and one for later.

I promise if you ever come to visit I'll make one just for you!


I started off making this Paleo Pastry Crust from my Against All Grain Cookbook by Danielle Walker.

Her book here on amazon or here is another similar recipe of her's at her website, Honey Graham Cracker Pie Crust.

I have also made pie with this ah-maz-ing crust...

by Amy Thielen of Heartland Table

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
9 ounces (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Directions

For the flaky butter pie crust: Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and cut it in with a pastry blender until the largest pieces are the size of small peas and the mixture begins to clump on the pastry blender. Shuffle through the mixture with your hands, pinching chunks of fat to flatten them.

Stir the vinegar and 5 tablespoons ice water together in a bowl. Add the liquid to the flour mixture and stir with a fork. Pinch a clump of dough in your hands: If it feels moist and clumps together easily, it's probably hydrated enough. If it feels really crumbly, add another tablespoon or two of ice water until you can form a baseball-size clump of dough, packing it on as if you were making a snowball.

Divide the dough in half and form each half into a flat disk. Wrap both disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Thirty minutes before you're ready to roll out the dough, remove it from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature to soften.
* This recipe is for her blueberry pie, so it doesn't have separate directions for baking just the pie crust. I found other instructions from Martha Stewart...
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prick the bottom of pastry all over with a fork. Line the pastry with parchment paper; fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until pastry begins to color around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and weights, and continue to bake just until the pastry dries out and turns a light golden color for a partially baked shell, and a deeper amber for a fully baked shell, 5 to 20 minutes more. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.


For the filling I followed this Betty Crocker recipe...

Filling

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar 
  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 cups water 
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel 
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice 
  • 2 drops yellow food color, if desired

Meringue

  • 3 egg whites 
  • 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 6 tablespoons sugar 
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla  
 Directions
  • Oven temperature to 400°F. In small bowl, beat egg yolks with fork. In 2-quart saucepan, mix sugar and cornstarch; gradually stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute.
  • Immediately stir at least half of hot mixture into egg yolks; stir back into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 2 minutes; remove from heat. Stir in butter, lemon peel, lemon juice and food color. Pour into pie crust.
  • In medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Beat in vanilla. Spoon onto hot pie filling. Spread over filling, carefully sealing meringue to edge of crust to prevent shrinking or weeping.
  • Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until meringue is light brown. Cool away from draft 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate cooled pie until serving. Store in refrigerator. 
  •  

I've never done a meringue pie before and it's quite fun.

I have lots of perfection to make!
 
Maybe one of these days I'll be able to make a Lemon Meringue Pie like Julia Child, hopefully!

Which, Aug. 15th is also the amazing Julia Child's Birthday. Perfect.

Here's to pies and Julia!

Bon Appétit!

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