Fresh lemon taste with an impressively high meringue top. Easier to achieve than you think. Full recipe here for this amazing lemon meringue pie.
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Tried and True Pie Crust Recipe
For this lemon meringue pie recipe you can use store purchased pie crust. However, if you wish to make the pie crust, here is my tried and true pie crust recipe.
Old Fashioned Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe
When I was a child, I learned how to make this lemon meringue pie. It remains a family favorite to this day. At a pie sale, it sells out quickly. As you can see from the photo, the picture of the slice of pie is taken outside in the park. Four lemon meringue pies out of 32 pies sold out first. Might have been the amazing meringue topping.
Refreshing Lemon Flavor
In the photo, you can see the high meringue on top of the thick lemony custard filling. The filling is tangy and refreshing. This just makes for an impressive presentation. However, the taste is divine too.
Tips to Cutting This Delicious Dessert
It can be difficult to serve a beautiful looking piece of pie like the one above if you don’t know the trick. Often, the meringue will stick to the knife and you can quickly have a sticky mess on your hands. The trick to getting a piece of pie to look like this, dip the knife in cold water before each knife cut. Also, after each pie cut, wipe the knife with a paper towel. A long serrated knife would work well in conjunction with a pie server. This set is would do the work nicely.
Impress family and friends with this easy recipe.
Amazing Lemon Meringue Pie
Ingredients
Pie Crust
- 1 9 inch pie crust purchased or homemade. See the homemade pie crust recipe on this blog.
Lemon Filling
- 1 1/2 Cups sugar
- 1/3 Cup corn starch
- 1/4 Tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 Cups Hot Water
- 5 Egg Yolks slightly beaten, some recipes call for 4 egg yolks, but I like 5 egg whites for the meringue and don’t like to waste. slighly beat egg yolks
- 4 TBL Lemon Juice
- 1 1/2 TBL Zest of 2 lemons zested and chopped finely.
- 3 Tbl. butter Must be butter-no substitutions or this may not turn out the same
Meringue
- 5 Egg Whites
- 1 Cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 Tsp. Cream of Tartar
- 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract optional
Instructions
Pie shell
- Can use purchased or homemade. There is a link to my recipe above for homemade pie pastry. Roll out dough for 1 pie pan. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Pre-bake the pie 5-10 minutes until golden brown. Let cool while making the filling.
Lemon Filling
- In a saucepan add the sugar, corn starch, and salt. Gradually stir in the hot water. Cook over moderate heat, stirring consistently until the mixture boils and thickens. Boil approximately 1 minute. (make sure that you scrape the bottom so the mixture does not burn).
- Add 1 or 2 ladles of the hot mixture into the slightly beaten egg yolks. Whisking constantly until incorporated. Then take this mixture and add it to the hot mixture, whisking constantly.
- Return to the stove and boil 1 minute longer, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat. Continue stirring and add the lemon juice and lemon zest. Also add in the butter one Tbl. at a time.
- Pour into the baked and cooled pie shell. Let sit to cool while you are making the meringue.
Meringue
- In a large bowl, neat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until frothy.
- Gradually beat in the sugar a little bit at a time. Continue to beating until there are stiff and glossy peaks.
- Gently spoon the meringue onto the pie filling. Make sure to spread the filling out to the edge of the pie shell to prevent shrinking. Also, if the filling is exposed to the heat from the baking process, it may weep.
- Swirl and pull up points of the meringue to create a decorative top. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake approximately 10-15 minutes or until the meringue is golden brown.
- Cool the pie gradually in a slightly warm place. (A chill may make the meringue fall).
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I hope that you liked this recipe. If you are looking for more ideas on what to make, here are a few other recipes that you may enjoy.
