Stir together the rest of the ingredients and pour it in the baked crust, then bake again till jiggly-firm.
They forget to show the part where you're counting out and weighing saltines, zesting and squeezing the lemons, and separating the eggs.
Oh, and the part where I got lemon juice in the cut on my little finger. Ouch. Wish I had a little sous chef like they do.
The lemon filling for this pie is the best lemon pie filling I've ever had. Just a touch tarter than sweet, creamy from the addition of heavy cream, and altogether divine.
The crust is very unusual, which is one of the reasons I wanted to make it. It's made with saltines (I know, right?) and is crunchy, a little salty and goes perfectly with the filling. It's not your normal graham crackery-tasting crust - it's very good! Next time I'll make the crust a little thinner on the bottom, though.
Oh, and don't forget that layer of whipped cream on the top either (next time I'll double that).
Update: After two days in the refrigerator, we decided the pie is at it's best. The crust absorbed some of that wonderful lemon filling and softened. Bret doesn't particularly like lemon stuff and he's eating this up!
North Carolina Lemon Pie
Yield: 8 slices
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Inactive Time: 3 hours
Total Time: 3 hours50 minutes
Delicious lemon filling in a crunchy, slightly salty crust and a thin layer of whipped cream.
Ingredients
Crust
6 oz saltine crackers (about 53 crackers - or 1 ½ sleeves)
⅛ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoon butter, melted
¼ C light corn syrup
Filling
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
¼ C heavy cream
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
½ C fresh lemon juice (about 3 medium lemons)
⅛ teaspoon salt
Topping
½ C heavy cream, chilled
2 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Crust: Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease (or spray) a 9" glass pie plate.
Combine the saltines and salt in a food processor and pulse to coarse crumbs, about 15 pulses. Add the melted butter and corn syrup and pulse about 15 more times, until the crumbs are broken down into oatmeal-sized pieces.
Pour the saltine mixture into the prepared pie plate. Using the bottom of a dry measuring ½ cup, press the crumbs into an even layer on the bottom and sides of the plate, using your fingers to keep the crumbs in as you're pressing the crumbs. Place the pie plate on a baking sheet and bake until light golden brown, 17 minutes. Remove from oven.
Filling: While the crust bakes, whisk the condensed milk, egg yolks, cream, lemon zest and salt into a medium bowl until fully combined. Whisk in the lemon juice (it will thicken a bit at this point) until fully combined.
Keep the pie crust on the baking sheet and pour the filling into the crust (crust doesn't need to be cool).
Bake the pie (still at 350°) until edges are beginning to set but the center still jiggles just a bit when shaken, 15 to 17 minutes. It will firm up a little after it's taken from the oven and cooling. Cool completely on a wire rack, then place in the refrigerator until fully chilled, about 3-4 hours.
Topping: In a medium bowl (or stand mixer), whisk and whip the cream, sugar, and vanilla on medium-low speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to high and whip until stiff peaks form, 1-2 minutes. Spread a thin layer of whipped cream over the top of the pie. Garnish with thin lemon slices if desired.
I wrote the recipe exactly as I made the pie and the ingredient amounts are exactly what Cook's Country called for. Next time I will make some minor changes:
Since I use salted butter, I will omit the salt from the crust. Also, on the crust, I will lower the amount of saltines to 5 oz (and only 9 tablespoon melted butter) as I thought the crust was a bit thick on the bottom.
Next time, I will double the topping since we like a thicker layer of whipped cream.
Use your favorite graham cracker crust if you don't want to/don't have time to make the saltine cracker crust.
Just like when you under cook it, placing a lemon meringue pie in the refrigerator after baking can cause the meringue topping to “weep." If you do have leftovers that you'd like to save, it's okay to refrigerate! Just know the texture may slightly change.
This lemon meringue recipe has everything going for it: just the right amount of creamy, sour-meets-sweet, tangy lemon filling, cloud-like fluffy meringue with its soft, slightly scorched peaks, and a perfectly crisp buttery base.
To store a meringue-topped pie overnight, insert wooden toothpicks into meringue halfway between the center and edge of the pie; loosely drape clear plastic wrap over the toothpicks. Refrigerate for up to 2 days. Refrigerate whipped cream-topped pies for up to 4 hours.
What many folks don't know is that lemon meringue pie is actually a Philadelphia invention born out of the Victorian-era, courtesy of Mrs.Elizabeth Goodfellow, a 19th century pastry shop proprietress who ran America's first cooking school.
Beat a mixture of thickened cornstarch and water into the egg whites to bind and stabilize the liquid in the meringue (and keep it from seeping out). Cook the filling for the full 2 minutes on the stove top so the cornstarch thickens completely and doesn't start breaking down and "leaking" during chilling.
The most common way to ward off a soggy pie crust is by a process called blind baking. Blind baking means you pre-bake the crust (sometimes covered with parchment or foil and weighed down with pie weights to prevent the crust from bubbling up) so that it sets and crisps up before you add any wet filling.
Processed white, granulated sugar have the tendency to make lemon curds metallic. So, if you find that your curd have a slight metallic flavor, you can try substituting process sugar for raw sugar, like cane sugar.
Water is leaking from the beaten whites (they're 87% water), pooling between the filling and the meringue, and dripping down the sides to the crust. The cause? While the meringue cooks on top when it is put into a hot oven, there isn't sufficient time for the meringue to cook on the bottom.
Apple pie is arguably one of the most popular pie flavors. A symbol of America, the apple pie was actually invented by the British. Apple pie is simply made with sliced apples on double-crusted pastry dough.
Avoid storing the pie outside of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours. Once you've served a few slices of the pie, return the remaining pieces to the refrigerator to prevent bacteria growth. Never leave the pie sitting at room temperature for long periods of time.
Lemon meringue pie is best made and served on the same day. Leftovers can be kept in the fridge and eaten in for a few days, but the meringue is likely to slip away from the lemon filling and both the meringue and pastry will be soft.
Water seeping from meringue is practically always coming from the egg whites. There are a few standard things you can do to reduce it. First, do not overbeat. For some reason, recipes love to direct people to beat egg whites "to stiff peaks".
A generic 'meringue pie' based on any pie was documented in 1860. The name 'Lemon Meringue Pie' appears in 1869, but lemon custard pies with meringue topping were often simply called lemon cream pie. In literature one of the first references to this dessert can be found in the book 'Memoir and Letters of Jenny C.
If a pie contains eggs or dairy products, it should be stored in the refrigerator and not left out at room temperature for more than two hours. Pies that do not contain dairy products, such as fruit pies can be stored, loosely covered at room temperature for up to two days.
This pie is best eaten the same day, but will keep in the refrigerator, covered, up to 3 days. Because this pie doesn't have a meringue top, it also freezes well, tightly covered in plastic wrap and again in foil for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge.
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