(Meyer) Lemon Meringue Pie

For the crust:

In a food processor add the flour, salt and sugar. Add the butter all at once and pulse about 10 times. Turn the processor on and gradually add the ice water until the dough forms a loose ball. Put your dough quickly into plastic wrap and wrap up tightly and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Set oven to 400ºF.

Once dough has had time to chill, roll out on floured surface about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Put on a lightly buttered pie plate and blind bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Check often because cook times could be different. (I lay a sheet of foil over my crust add pie weights to cover the bottom and then bake it so that the dough doesn’t puff up.)

For the (Meyer) lemon curd:

In a small saucepan combine cornstarch, sugar, salt and water. On medium heat, cook until mixture is slightly thick and clear. Add lemon juice and cook for another minute. Remove from heat source. Take egg yolks and break them up in a small bowl. Take about a cup of the hot lemon mixture and slowly add it to your egg yolks while constantly whisking so that the eggs don’t cook, but cream together smoothly. Add egg mixture with the rest of the lemon mixture in the saucepan, still whisking so that the eggs don’t cook in chunks—we aren’t making scrambled eggs here. Put your mixture back on the heat and cook for another 2 minutes. Turn off heat and whisk in lemon zest and butter.

You can start your meringue while the lemon curd is cooking or you can finish making the curd and then start the meringue. If you aren’t comfortable, then do everything seperately so that you don’t risk burning the curd.

For the meringue:

Beat egg whites with your whisk attachment on your mixer until soft peaks form. Add cream of tartar and sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat on high until you get soft peaks. Gradually add hot simple syrup until peaks stand on their own. Do not overbeat! You will know because the mixture will start to dry up and separate.

On the cooled pie shell, spread lemon curd. Then you can simply spread on your meringue with an offset spatula or you can pipe it on like I did. Put it in a 400ºF oven for about 10-15 minutes. Watch it while it’s in the oven. You just want the top of your meringue to brown up slightly. The purpose is to brown the top because the pie itself is cooked already.

Enjoy.