Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Meringue pie is an American Classic, we have made it in my family for years and everyone loves it. Recently, here in Italy we were having problems with our cell phone carrier, they kept charging us for extra fees and we had no idea why because the fees were explained in Italian and it didn’t translate well to English when we used Google translate, But our good friend Davide came to our rescue. With a brief phone call to our carrier he resolved our problem and even got some cash back! So for a reward he simply asked for a pie, a lemon meringue pie. Well, that’s easy enough!

However, in my effort to make a perfect lemon meringue pie AND document it for my blog, I inadvertently forgot to add the lemon juice! Imagine my horror when my perfect looking lemon meringue pie turned out to be an egg pie! Well, we could call it an Egg Custard and that would sound better but there is not even any milk or cream in it! Basically egg and sugar and water. In the middle of my great angst, Jeff came up with the idea to make a lemon sauce to serve with the pie so each bite could have a little lemon flavor to it. It came out beautifully served this way and not just because the Italians I served it to wouldn’t know that that Lemon Meringue Pie doesn’t normally come with a lemon sauce! Pie is not an Italian thing, they have crostata which is more like thick pie crust with a little jam but not our thin pie crust with a thick amount of pie filling. They also don’t have this type of lemon dessert or a soft meringue. They can buy hard meringue cookies but not Amy pie like this. The Italian woman I served it tomsaid it was delicious and everyone took a second slice! That’s when you know you have succeeded. She also paid me the highest compliment an Italian cook could give to a non-italian, and that is to tell you that you know “lemon” better than Italians! Wow! I almost fell over. Italians are quite proud of their and lemon savvy in the kitchen so this was high praise indeed! Imagine if I had actually remembered to our the lemon juice inside of the pie! Just to allay your doubts I also served it to an American couple from North Carolina who were at the same dinner party, they also loved it and said I may just have came up with a new spin on Lemon Meringue Pie! Well, a compliments aside I would rather have made the pie correctly, it would have saved me a lot of angst.

I hope if you try this recipe and make the most beautiful lemon meringue pie, but don’t forget to add the lemon!

My beautiful lemon less) meringue with a side of lemon sauce

Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients for lemon custard:

1 prepared pie crust (see my recipe in the archives for pie crust)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup hot water
3 egg yolks
2 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup lemon juice

Ingredients for Meringue:

8 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon corn starch
4 egg whites
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions for Lemon Custard:

Roll out pie crust, place in a pie dish, poke holes with a fork and bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 10 minutes, allow to cool.
Separate egg yolks from egg whites, set aside
Combine sugar, salt, flour and cornstarch, set aside
Put water in a sauce pan, add the egg yolks and whisk
add the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cornstarch)
turn up the heat to medium high and whisking until thickened.
add lemon juice and butter, stir to combine
pour custard into prepared pie crust

Instructions for Meringue:

Mix sugar and corn starch together, set aside
In a separate bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Adding the sugar mixture a little at a time.
spoon on top of lemon custard and bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 10 more minutes.