My Dad’s favorite kind of pie is lemon meringue (although we all like just about every kind of pie,) so when they came over for dinner, I made lemon meringue pie.  I thought it would be great for this month’s pie installment.

The easiest way to make lemon pudding is of course the Jello mix you can buy at the grocery store, but homemade lemon pudding is super easy and worlds better.  If you can invest in farm eggs for your lemon pudding, do so.  It adds a beautiful yellow color that wimpy store eggs just cannot.  If all you can buy are store eggs, you’ll still enjoy the wonderful flavor of the homemade pudding.  This recipe come from Mark Bittman’s cookbook How to Cook Everything and is just one example of the always-successful recipes he prints.

Lemon Pudding:

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

Pinch salt

2 cups boiling water

4 eggs, separated (save whites for meringue)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 teaspoons lemon zest

6 tablespoons lemon juice (freshly squeezed)

Combine sugar, cornstarch, salt and boiling water in small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until smooth and thick, about 10 minutes.  While it is cooking, beat the egg yolks until smooth.  When the cornstarch mixture is thick, remove from heat and stir about 1/4 cup of the hot mixture into the egg yolks, beating well to warm the yolks, then add the yolk mixture into the cornstarch mixture and stir vigorously.  Return to low heat, add butter and lemon zest and juice and cook and stir about 5 minutes until smooth and hot.

Meringue:

4 egg whites

1/4 cup powdered sugar

pinch cream of tartar

In clean glass or metal bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar using an electric mixer until soft peaks start to form.  Continue beating while adding slowly the powdered sugar until the mixture is shiny and holds stiff peaks.  Take care not to overbeat.

To make lemon meringue pie, first pre-bake a 9-inch pie shell.  While pie crust is still hot, fill with lemon pudding and spread meringue over the pudding, spreading clear to the edges of the pie.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Lemon pie is also wonderful with whipped cream in place of meringue.  This is even simpler, but it will leave you with finding something to do with your egg whites . . .

Please share your pie recipes or links below!

Well, I promised you a pie challenge, and this pie was quite challenging for me.  First of all, I had trouble choosing a recipe for pecan pie.  I was certain this pie could be made with honey, because corn syrup seems like it must be a relatively new invention.  Also, since corn syrup is not a “real” food (it is made through high-level processing) it is persona non grata at our house.  It was troubling as well because most pecan pie seem to me to be too thin: they leave me wanting a little more.  My solution was to add extra pecans to the recipe.  The third problem I had in making this pie was the baking instructions.  The recipe I finally settled on called for baking the pie for a total of 40 minutes, steadily lowering the baking temperature.  However, after the 2nd temperature change (from 400 to 300 degrees) and 20 minutes, the pie was not set at all.  With only 10 minutes left on the original timer, I scoured my cookbooks and reset the oven to 350 degrees.  This resulted in a slightly carmelized top as the top element in the oven came on to bring the oven up to that temperature.

Well, I guess it’s enough to say we ate this pie in one sitting.  The honey taste was not too strong for my dissenter (Max isn’t into honey,) and everyone loved the nuts.  Even the carmelized top was a nice addition, and the (Crisco-based) pie crust was the best I’ve made in months!

Here’s the recipe:

Unbaked pie shell

3 eggs, beaten until light

1 cup honey

1 tablespoon butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Beat eggs until very light and frothy.  Add honey and melted butter in a steady stream.  When thoroughly combined, add vanilla, salt and pecan and mix well.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake about 30 minutes more, until filling is set.  Cool completely before serving.

I hope you are having your own pie adventure this month.  Please leave a link or a recipe in the comments below!