Lemon Meringue Pie

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F). Roll out your pie crust in a pie plate. Repeatedly poke crust with a fork, line crust with foil and top with pie weights. Bake for 12 minutes, then remove foil and weights and continue to bake for 8 more minutes. Remove from oven and let cool while you prepare the lemon filling.

Grate 2 tablespoons of lemon rind and squeeze 3/4 cup of lemon juice from lemons… set these both aside for now.

Mix sugar, salt and cornstarch in saucepan. Add 2 1/4 cups water and the lemon juice to saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring as needed, for 15 minutes or until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat.

Beat egg yolks in a bowl and stir half of the hot lemon mixture into the yolks. Next, stir the lemon/yolk mixture back into the remaining lemon mixture in the saucepan. Put back on a medium heat burner for one minute, then turn off heat, add butter and grated lemon rind. Pour lemon mixture into baked pie crust and set aside while you make the meringue.

Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees (F).

Meringue: Beat egg whites and cream of tarter in mixing bowl on high speed until foamy. Continuing on high speed, beat in sugar, a small amount at a time. Continue on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Spread as much meringue as you like over the pie and swirl into peaks.

Bake pie on the lower rack at 325 degrees (F) until meringue temperature registers at 140 degrees. I usually just keep my eye one the meringue and and remove the pie when peaks are browning. This takes about 25 minutes.

Cool for at least two hours before serving. Enjoy!