Foolproof Lemon Meringue Pie - Kitchen Conundrums with Thomas Joseph

hey everybody thomas joseph here now when attempting to make a beautiful and tangy lemon meringue pie at home do you end up with something like this where the meringue topping is all weepy and the filling is either over or under set well today i'm going to share with you the foolproof method in making lemon meringue pie at home and this will be your go-to recipe i promise [Music] all right so to get started i'm going to make the lemony filling now the one really important ingredient here when making a lemon meringue pie filling is using enough starch or thickener to give you a really great consistency but not using too too much where you get something that's almost like jello like that's not what you're looking for you're looking for something that's creamy but also is it sturdy so that you could slice a piece of pie so i have a quarter of a cup of cornstarch here and cornstarch is really great for thickening curds and custards and puddings i'm going to put that into the saucepan here with a little bit of sugar to offset the uh tartness of the lemon and this is a cup of granulated sugar and i like to mix the sugar and cornstarch together with a wire whisk to really break up the clumps of corn starch since cornstarch is so fine you really need to kind of whisk it together with the sugar so that you won't get any big clumps in your filling so mix this together and add a quarter of a teaspoon of salt and we always use coarse kosher salt here in the test kitchen and to this i'm going to add some water so this is two cups of just regular water and what this is gonna do is it's gonna give us a nice thick filling it's also going to help kind of temper the acidity and tartness of the lemon so this i'm going to bring up to a boil and while this is coming up to temperature i'm going to zest a lemon so i need one and a half teaspoons of lemon zest for this recipe and the filling here is kind of this this interesting hybrid of a lemon curd but it's also kind of thickened with that corn starch so it's almost like a pudding in a way too it's a really kind of classic method in making lemon meringue pie and i need about one and a half teaspoons of lemon zest for this recipe and just depending on the size of your lemon you might need two but this looks just fine here one lemon so i'm going to just add that into my pot with the starch and the water and sugar and this has to come up to a boil and the reason we need this to boil here is because we need the starch to be activated it needs to come up to a high high temperature 212 degrees so that it really activates the starch and it will thicken your filling to the right consistency so while that's working i'm gonna juice the rest of my lemon here because i need a lot of lemon juice for this tangy filling about a half a cup in total and that can come from about i would say two to three lemons of course depending on their size so i have my lemon juice now my mixture is coming up to a boil and i'm going to separate a few eggs here guys so i need four egg yolks in total for this filling and about eight egg whites for the meringue topping so many more egg whites i always like to crack my eggs on a flat surface [Music] this way no shells kind of come up into the egg and just to separate you're going to let the whites kind of fall away from the yolk you can slide the yolk back and forth between the two shells here so our corn starch mixture over here has come to a boil and this needs to continue to boil for a few minutes again we really want to fully activate the starch and that only happens when you bring it up to a boil all right so this looks good guys and now i'm gonna remove this pan from the heat and i'm going to temper this thickened mixture into my four egg yolks here you want to make sure that you're just incorporating a little bit of this really hot liquid into your yolks bringing the yolks up to the temperature ultimately of the rest of this hot starch mixture so a little bit at a time whisking constantly and this is just to prevent those egg yolks from scrambling once you get the yolks and the starch mixture combined you're going to go right back into the same pot here and i need to bring this back up to a boil for about a minute now the reason you can't start with egg yolks in the starch mixture is because egg yolks will kind of degrade and break down and curdle so they really only need a little bit of time on the heat to really thicken and lend the richness to this filling that we're looking for so this shouldn't take very long since the mixture is nice and hot you want to make sure that you're whisking constantly so the bottom of the pan doesn't scorch the mixture is coming up to a boil here and again i just want to boil this for about a minute so this looks good i'm going to turn the heat off remove the pan from heat and i'm going to add the lemon juice now and the reason we're adding the lemon juice off the heat is to preserve that really fresh flavor we really want the wonderful acidity and tartness and fresh lemon flavor to come through so we don't want to cook it so once this is whisked in then i'm going to add 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and this is pretty much at room temperature guys and you just want to whisk this in a little bit at a time and this will end up giving you a really beautiful shiny filling now classically a lemon meringue pie um uses a pastry crust and that's what i have here today this is a basic pie dough crust pat brisee and once the butter is melted into the filling you're going to pour while it's still hot right into your prepared blind baked crust you can see how well baked this is it's not white there's no uncooked spots on the high shell and you want to make sure that the crust is fully baked here guys because this is not going back in the oven this is going right into the refrigerator and i need to chill this now for about six hours or up to overnight and you really want to make sure that you're chilling the filling completely so it's nice and set now with puddings and curds and fillings like this we like to cover the top with plastic wrap directly so that it doesn't form a skin on top of the pie so now this needs to go into the refrigerator for about six hours up to overnight so this is kind of best to do the day before you're planning on serving it all right guys so the lemon filling is in the refrigerator chilling until it's nice and set i have eight egg whites here and these are at room temperature and to this i'm going to add three quarters of a cup of granulated sugar now i am making a swiss meringue today for the top of the lemon meringue pie and the reason why is because when you heat the egg whites and the sugar together and you really dissolve the sugar into the egg whites it creates a more stable meringue a lot of lemon meringue pie recipes have you making a french meringue which is just done at room temperature and i think what happens there is that you run the risk of having sugar granules that are undissolved in your meringue and that creates weeping you don't want this to be rapidly boiling you just want simmering water underneath is going to gradually melt the sugar into the egg whites now to really know if that has happened just dip your fingers into the mixture and you shouldn't feel any grittiness in between your fingers okay that's when you know that the sugar is completely dissolved then you know that your mixture is ready now to be whipped into a nice beautiful peak so i'm going to attach this bowl right onto my stand mixer i'm going to turn this on medium speed here and really whisk this egg white mixture up to nice peaks to this i'm going to add a little bit of cream of tartar now cream of tartar is a form of acid that helps keep a nice stable meringue so a quarter of a teaspoon will do a great job here in making sure we have nice lofty silky peaks all right let's check this out so our meringue here has quadrupled in volume we have nice beautiful stiff peaks here you can see there's a nice kind of sharp peak that's sticking almost straight up but these aren't dry you want to make sure that the meringue here isn't dry and crumbly because if you over whip your meringue if you over bead it over agitate it you are likely to have it weep in the end so make sure that you're not going too too far with this process now i'm going to add a little secret ingredient and that is about a half a teaspoon of corn starch and what corn starch does is it really helps to absorb any excess moisture which can encourage weeping so sugar there's a lot of sugar in this mixture and what does sugar do well it absorbs moisture so the corn starch what it does is it kind of helps absorb any excessive amount of moisture that may occur during weeping now to this i'm going to add a half a teaspoon of vanilla extract and really the extract here is for flavor so i'm just going to mix this together until it's nice and combined this looks perfect and i have my pie here that has been fully set this is sat overnight i'm going to gently remove the plastic wrap from the top which has done a nice job of keeping a kind of thick unsightly film from forming over the top of the pie and now all i'm going to do is just give this a gentle fold with a rubber spatula now i like to use a big spoon to scoop the meringue on top of the pie and this really just helps to give you nice beautiful structure and peaks to your pie so nice big dollops this is really where you can have a little bit of fun you could certainly transfer this into a piping bag and you can make a decorative design on top or you can kind of freestyle it like i am for the finishing touch i'm just going to use one of these offset spatulas but you could use a small spoon here and just push the meringue down you want to really cover up as much of the filling as possible guys so just make sure with the meringue that you go to the edge of the filling and the more divots and kind of swoops and swirls that you get here with your offset spatula or your spoon the better this will look once we brown the top now traditionally a lot of recipes call for you putting this into the oven at either a high temperature or under the broiler and the one thing that i think about that is that what it does is it really heats up your meringue it brings it up to a high temperature which can encourage it to weep on you so if you have a blowtorch at home one of these kitchen torches so you can get these at hardware stores or you can get kitchen torches at any kind of specialty supply shops now really what you're going to do is just ever so slightly brown the meringue and what this does is it toasts the meringue it brings out kind of a marshmallowy flavor and it really helps to highlight all of those wonderful indentations in the meringue all right that looks amazing now i always think once you put the meringue and you torch it um or brown the meringue you want to make sure that you serve this almost immediately now you can put this into the refrigerator because we've added corn starch to the meringue and it will hold up in the refrigerator for a little bit but too much time and of course this thing will start to weep so i'm going to serve a piece right away because i can't wait to try this i'm using a nice big chef's knife here you want to make sure that you slice all the way down into the bottom of the plate and into the corner and the crevices of the plate trusty pie spatula here slide this guy out so there you go guys a perfect slice of lemon meringue pie now as always if you have any kitchen conundrums any baking conundrums reach out to us using the hashtag kitchen conundrums we love to hear from you and hey enjoy your lemon meringue pie and as always guys click like and subscribe [Music] you

Channel: Everyday Food

Views: 222,941

Keywords: foolproof, lemon, meringue, pie, thomas joseph, kitchen conundrums, martha stewart, edf, everydayfood, recipe, dessert, cooking, baking, how to, cook

Id: q9EyekX0ZSw

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019