Since I had a lot of lemons and eggs this week I decided to make a lemon meringue pie. It’s a very light pie that doesn’t actually take much to bake, except a somewhat labor-intensive process. The recipe (I made an 8 inch pie; the recipe linked is the same recipe but for a 9 inch pie) is straight out of my old Betty Crocker cookbook.

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I started by using up the last of my Crisco* to make a basic baked pie crust.

While it was in the oven, I started zesting and juicing lemons until I got 1/3 cup of juice.

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I measured out all my other ingredients and made meringue next, because the pie has to be assembled while the lemon filling is still hot and I wanted to be ready to work quickly. Two egg whites whipped with cream of tartar* and sugar** and mixed with vanilla extract***.

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The next step was to make a thick syrup of sugar, water, and cornstarch boiled together, then temper in the yolks from the two eggs I used for the meringue. It’s satisfying to have a recipe that calls for separated eggs then uses both the whites and the yolks. Then I added the zest and juice of three small lemons, some butter, and a couple (unnecessary) drops of yellow food coloring*.

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Then I spread the meringue over the hot filling (being sure to completely seal it), made some decorative peaks with a spatula, and baked it for ten minutes at 400°F.

The pie has to be left to cool for a while after that. I’ve never baked anything with meringue before and I feel accomplished for having done so.

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*store-bought

**after using up my store-bought sugar I remembered that my old roommate left some in my cupboard

***a gift from my mom