Lemon Meringue from Scratch

Here's a collection of pictures of me making lemon meringue pie from scratch...

Ingredients and recipe ready to go.

After shaping the crust I've poked holes before baking it.

 The crust should be lined with aluminum foil to help prevent it from shrinking. Bake it at 450 for 8 min. (NOTE: I made a mistake here in a subsequent pie by not rolling out my crust enough to form a wide enough lip (where I have the fluted edge). Even after lining it with foil it shrank considerably. So make sure the crust is sized generously. Also, it was not done in 8 min. I removed the foil and cooked it for a few extra minutes and just kept an eye on it until it was browned nicely.)

Here it is ready for the lemon filling.

The beginning of the filling.

Filling cooked and ready to go.

The meringue recipe I used was from Better Homes and Gardens. I doubled it:
6 egg whites at room temp.
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup sugar.

Put egg whites in mixing bowl and add cream of tartar and vanilla. Mix on medium slow speed until frothy. Then whip on medium until soft peaks form. Add sugar 1 Tbsp at a time. Whip at high speed until stiff peaks form. Bake at 350 for 15 min.

Stiff peaks.

Getting fancy with the spikes.

Baked and now just has to be chilled.

Yes, it is fabulous and worth making from scratch.

Apple Pie Recipe

I use a general guideline when I make apple pie. I never write down what I end up doing or the results and I do have to admit always feeling a little uncomfortable guessing every time. Now I have to experiment so I can write down which way we all like it best. So this time I am did 10 apples (Golden Delicious) and 2 cups of previously frozen rhubarb. I put in 1 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 well rounded tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg. I cooked the filling on the stove until it was heated through and beginning to thicken. Then I poured it into the pie shell and topped it with approximately one tablespoon of butter cut into small chunks. I formed the top crust on and then dribbled it with milk and sprinkled it with white sugar. I baked it at 350 for 45 min. Follow up: I didn't get to taste this myself but hubby really liked it. He said it wasn't too tart.

For further experimenting, I made a second pie. This one was 12 Goldens, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 rounded teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.  I precooked the filling until the flour thickened and everything was hot and bubbly and then I cooked it for a few more minutes for good measure. I topped the filling with a approximately a tablespoon of butter chunks and then the top crust. I dribbled that with a tablespoon of milk and a tablespoon of white sugar. This pie also was baked at 350 for 45 min. Basically you need to bake it until the apples are tender enough to your liking. I poke it with a steak knife through the "x" I cut in the crust. Follow up: Hubby tasted this one too and said there were a few apple pieces that could have been cooked longer. I have since made it again. I cooked the apples on the stove for 20 min (timed from as soon as I turned the burner on to medium). I again baked it at 350 for 45 min. I am hoping the longer time on the stove will solve the crunchy apple problem.
Update: This pie was perfect. Yay :) Now I have a recipe I can follow and no more guessing.

This time making the pies I chopped up the apples in a way I really liked. I use my hand crank apple-peeler-slicer-corer with the corer loosened and moved out of the way so the apples only get peeled and not sliced and cored. (I think it slices the apples too thinly.) Once my apple was peeled I used a hand held corer to core them. Then I cut the two ends off and then cut the apple in half and used the corer to gouge out any seeds or seed husks out. Then I sliced them about a 1/4" thick from top to bottom and then one more cut crosswise finished my chopping. To keep the apples from turning brown I used this suggestion I found on Pinterest. Fill a large bowl with cold water. For every 4-6 cups of water add 1 tsp of salt. Just plop your apples in this mixture as you cut them. The salt water is mild enough that it doesn't change the flavor of your apples the way lemon juice does.

Better Pie

This involves precooking the fillings. What?! Precooking the filling? Isn't that a lot of unnecessary extra work? It might be but I like to make pies with LOTS of fruit filling and I have grown dissatisfied with my overcooked crust. So, I tried cooking the filling a little first. I just got everything heated through and the flour mixture thickening. Then I ladled it into the pie dish (with the bottom crust already formed in it). The baking time is much shorter than what I would normally do. (It used to be up to 1 3/4 hours for my apple pies with 12 apples.) Well, the results were so phenomenal that I suggested for my mom to try it. Now, my mom is the apple pie matriarch and she's not prone to messing with a good thing. She did try it, however, and loved it. She said she didn't want to be too stuck in her ways and mentioned something about age but she's not possibly old enough for that. Anyhow, this gives me the confidence to recommend this new trick to all of you. Trust me, your crust will be so much better for it!