How to Make Lemon Meringue Pie - Live! | Oh Yum 201 with Anna Olson

well hello everyone and welcome to another installment of oh yum 201 i'm really excited about today because we're making lemon meringue pie and this is one of those recipes i'd say it's it definitely in my top ten if not top five recipes that i am asked questions about there is a lot going on when it comes to making meringue pie because we are making a pie pastry we are making a lemon curd filling we are making a meringue so it's such a popular dessert especially if you live in this hemisphere it's a springtime recipe and but you're involving three distinct areas of the pastry kitchen and three different skills and lots of little tricky business when it comes to lemon meringue pie so i am here to answer your questions as we walk through my classic lemon meringue pie recipe together and i see lots of hellos coming in from everyone you know i have to start things off with hellos to mom dad michino i see kathy and raph uh bonnie i know you're watching and hopefully excited about getting a slice of this when i walk it down the street later i'm just gonna click refresh so that i can follow your uh questions as we work along and i think we're running full-on hello to istanbul dubai sharon ontario ojai california um from greece i think it's amazing that everyone is joining us and so i'm going to start this lemon meringue pie recipe with the pie dough now if you have followed my live streams or the oem channel before you will find this recipe in a few places it is such a fundamental recipe it's worth repeating i won't dwell on it too too very much but i want to walk you through the step by step of making a really good pie dough um suzanne if you're watching you know courtney loves making this pie dough recipe and it's got its own couple of tricks to it too now something to bear in mind uh this recipe that you see below the video window makes a two crust pie because i figure if you're going through the effort of making pie dough might as well make a full double crust pie recipe you only need the one pie shell uh one disc of dough for this recipe you can freeze the other one just thaw it in the fridge overnight before you use it i've already got my all-purpose flour in my mixing bowl and i'm adding my tablespoon of sugar and teaspoon of salt just a little bit of sugar it helps interrupt the protein the gluten strands keeping the dough tender i'll just give that a quick stir to work in you know me so well that i add salt to the flour but yet when it comes to the butter i use in the recipe i use unsalted butter why because that way we stay in charge of the salt it's plain and simple i love the freshness and sweetness of unsalted butter but before i add the butter my ingredient that i find really helps keep this pie dough recipe flaky yet tender at the same time is coating the flour first with three tablespoons that's 45 mil because i know in australia your tablespoon size is actually bigger than ours here in north america so 45 mil of just a neutral vegetable oil don't use olive oil just a good vegetable oil and we're going to work this in this coats the flour so that when you add the butter and work it in it works in evenly but the key is to protect it so when you add the water which the water wants to go into the flour and hydrate it and that creates a stretchy dough one that will spring back or not roll easily you've protected it by putting this vegetable oil this liquid fat on the flour it doesn't look any different once you've mixed it in and you can do this by hand just using a wooden spoon if you wish oh hermione good question you need all-purpose flour for this recipe so nothing too strong you don't want a bread flour or it'll be a tough crust and you can use pastry flour but it can have a tendency to crack or be almost too delicate so something right in the middle does the trick and i'm just checking out other questions you can make this kim good question yes you can definitely make this pie crust recipe by hand you want to use a pastry blender if you can this is a handy tool it looks like this and so it works in the butter when you add it to the flour and breaks it down into pieces very easily barring that you can use two butter knives but it takes a fair bit longer now a little tip if you've been taught how to make a classic pie pastry you've probably been taught that the butter has to be ice cold in fact maybe even put it in the freezer for an hour before you use it i have learned and i prefer to use butter that has actually sat out anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes now of course this depends on your climate the time of year and how cool it is uh we're still very cool here in southern ontario and hello to niagara falls new york just across the river um i i i saw your note pop up earlier but i like to soften the butter just a little bit because then it's going to take less time and less effort to work it into the flour so i would rather you not take as long and then not overwork the flour using ice-cold butter and honestly it will work out more evenly so you don't get that mix of big pieces and little pieces as you're cutting in the flour and it'll take a fraction of the time so while you're working in your butter i can see right now i have still big pieces and you can probably see from the side or the top of the bowl the flour still has a natural white color to it as the butter gradually works itself in it takes on a butter yellow color and that's your indica indicator that's your visual cue that the butter is likely worked in enough so then you want to have your cool water and your lemon juice or white vinegar ready i'm just going to let this go for another second and i'll show you what the texture of the flower looks like i will say i have put this recipe through its paces so many times i have been i have intentionally overworked the dough worked in the butter far too much i have worked with ice cold butter i've worked with soft butter this recipe has a lot of forgiveness to it and i think part of that also is to do with the precision in the measurements a lot of pie dough recipes when it comes time to add the liquid will tell you oh add between five and ten tablespoons or five and nine tablespoons of water well we're bakers we like our precision so why with the pie dough recipe are we not all of a sudden not committing to a water measurement and how are you supposed to know do i need five or do i need nine how do i know i have committed to a quarter cup so 60 ml of cool water and two teaspoons of lemon juice or white vinegar the acidity helps keep that dough elastic the proteins in the flour stretch easily so you won't get spring back on your crust it'll stay in place and like the butter you don't need ice cubes in your water just nice cool water now let's take a look at our mixture knowing that we will be blending this dough again when we add the liquid we've got sort of a delicate crumb structure but you still have some visible pieces of butter but they're about a third or a quarter of the size as to the size they went in so just tiny little broken down pieces and now it's time to add the water and lemon juice i'll pour one into the other i figure i'm using lemon juice this is lemon meringue pie but if you want to use vinegar it's absolutely fine it makes no difference i'll add that all at once and just wait for the dough to come together how's everyone doing i see we're already up to 192 likes that's excellent and we've got a good crowd watching i appreciate you joining us from wherever you are maybe you're staying up late or you're up very early um we've got i'm just checking out to see that if we have any pie dough related questions uh cj is asking they've never made pie crust in the stand mixer it is very easy to do by using the stand mixer as you can see i did it in under 10 minutes while talking at the same time so i know you've got this after it comes out of the mixer as soon as you see it comes together then um you want to pull it from the mixer oh i should mention if you want to use a food processor you can that is the one exception that you can you should use cold butter right from the fridge because the friction of the food processor blade warms up that dough very quickly so once you have your dough together you will find it feels soft because don't forget that butter was a little bit soft so now we need to chill it to make it easy to handle but also to allow time for the proteins in the flour to relax so that we have a nice tender crust that rolls easily oh i've got mine here we've got my sweetie michael running the cameras he's also the fridge errand person today and so i already pulled out my dough these i would wrap and pop in the fridge thank you very much and as i mentioned the recipe makes enough for a double crust pie if that's what you're after be right back but we're only using a single crust so just like oh alison is asking a great question any gluten-free ideas for a pie crust you will find i have a gluten-free pie crust recipe right here on oh yum if you look up my pear cranberry pie recipe that is a gluten-free crust so you could use that crust in this lemon meringue pie recipe because there is no additional flour or gluten in the filling or the meringue so you would be good to go that's a really great point and julie's asking the same question if you have a gluten-free flour blend that you like i would give it a try here's the gluten-free little hot tip for today when you're making a pie crust instead of adding water i want you to add the same volume so that would be two large egg whites 60 milliliters of egg white in place of the water because egg whites are pure protein so that the moisture will bring your dough together you will find you have to gently roll the crust but you will be able to line your pie shell it won't shrink because there's no gluten but you will find because of the egg whites in place of the water you get a nice crispness and your pie crust holds together that is key to success when you're making a gluten-free pie crust so great questions to be asking all right oh jacqueline's asking a question so no egg uh with my water and lemon and vinegar for this recipe no i don't i used to put an egg in the recipe but again sometimes i found i got a little more spring from it and the french method for making a pie dough or they call it a pet breeze is simply the flour and the butter with the water to to moisten it along with the acidity so just like the butter i used when i was making my pie dough um that i let it soften up for a few minutes when it comes to the pie crust i pull the dough out about 15 to 20 minutes before i wish to roll it for that exact same reason ice cold butter from the fridge doesn't matter how good your pie dough recipe is it will crack when you start rolling it and because this is such a butter rich dough um there's not the sugar in it to sort of liquefy and soften and you want to not you definitely don't want to knead this dough when you start rolling it it may crack a little bit so when you start rolling start with little motions starting in the center just to stretch it out get it used to being rolled out thin and now if you're going to get a crack when you're rolling out a pie dough it's going to start where you can't see it from the bottom because all the pressure when you're rolling out a crust is coming from the top and so this cold dough will sort of pull away from the bottom so a good little tip is always take a minute see there's the beginning of a crack flip your dough over and now you're evening out the pressure and you can you can flip it over again but i think we always think about rotating our dough but we never think about flipping it over and then it also means you're you're evening out your flour distribution your dusting on the bottom and the top so your pin won't stick and the dough won't stick and i just keep rotating the dough 45 degrees as i roll and now i'm favoring this side of my pin as i put pressure and rotate to keep the dough in a circle shape and keep the pressure even as it rolls out and now you can see some little flat pieces of butter these aren't chunks of butter in the dough these are flat sheets of butter within there that's going to contribute to the flakiness so don't worry if you see a couple little pieces of flat dough in there it's you're on your way to a flaky flaky dough but also at the same time if you don't see those little butter pieces don't panic about that either so i'm rolling this out to just shy of a quarter inch or six millimeters thick and i want a little bit extra for overhang i'm gonna flip this over one more time so a few natural cracks at the outside edge are expected and you know what it happens to everybody if you get a few cracks in your dough when you're rolling and they happen in the center you just do what we all do you pinch it back together give it a little dusting with flour and away you go so now i'm ready to line my pie shell now i tend to favor a glass pie shell when i'm making a fruit pie or a lemon meringue pie now glass conducts heat so wonderfully so it does take a little while to heat up but once it gets warm wow it holds the heat and that's why it works so well for a pie because the heat from that glass is kind of cooking the pie shell like it's it's its own heating element and so if you're making a fruit pie you know you're getting the crust set while the fruit inside is just starting to cook and if that shell is cooking faster than the fruit you know the fruit liquids won't seep through the crust for a lemon brewing pie we need to blind bake this we need to fully bake the pie shell first because it doesn't spend enough time in the oven when it's filled to fully cook it so the first thing i'm going to do is pinch the edges of the crust give it a nice little pattern and this isn't just about making it look pretty the function of this is to kind of latch the pastry onto the pie shell so that it stays in place when it bakes especially when it blind bakes so i'm just tucking in the edges here and i think i can do this and read questions at the same time oh finn is asking a good question and i think this applies to lemon desserts in general when to add lemon zest and when to add lemon juice so as more of a philosophical question um lemon zest is what adds intense lemon flavor to your lemon desserts and the juice typically adds just a light tartness but not the lemon flavor and so when it comes to adding that lemon ingredient when i add lemon zest if it's a cake or a cookie or a mousse i add the zest early on so that it has time to extract the flavor and then the lemon juice usually gets added at the very end now this lemon meringue pie doesn't actually make use of lemon zest at all because you want the smoothness of the custard without the interruption of little lemon zest pieces in there but we rely on a large quantity of lemon juice to get this recipe right so i've got my shell shaped and if you want to use a fork or you've got a pastry crimper you can use that i'm just going to do an angled effect with my two fingers and this too is securing the crust in place so with every pull i'm pressing it onto that top edge of the pie shell so that as it bakes it stays in place now this step of the recipe if you want to serve your lemon meringue pie tomorrow you want to be making your pie dough giving it time to chill in the fridge rolling and baking the shell a day before it really does help you to get ahead to do that a day before and then the filling and the meringue is best assembled the day you plan on serving it so if you're serving it for dinner tomorrow night you want to do your filling and meringue in the morning to give the pie time to cool so at this point i want to because i've rolled and exercised the dough again i want to pop this in the fridge minimum half an hour but again you could do this well ahead of time to let the butter reset the proteins relax and with the magic of michael we're going to ta-dah swap for the one that i already have cooled um so now it is really set in place i am not going to bake this right now because i have my oven set for the meringue which is at a different temperature but i just want to show you a great little trick so to bake this pie shell you want to preheat your oven to 400 degrees we want a hot oven to let the heat really get in there and set the pie shell we don't want that butter melting and then the shape of your pie shell changing too much but you have to blind bake any pie shell that has a cook a previously cooked filling so a coconut cream banana cream chocolate cream all the creams and your lemon meringue you need to fully pre-cook your shell if you were to just put it in the oven like this well you would get a buck a big bubble in the top of it and then your sides might slide a little bit because the filling acts as an anchor so you kind of have to trick your pie shell and this is why it's called blind baking because you're hiding it you can't see the pie shell and we're faking a filling so i have two pieces of tin foil and i want to press that well into the side edges i always use two because if you use one you'll get a tear and then all of a sudden whatever you're using to weigh down your pie will leak onto the pie shell you can use raw beans you can use raw rice if you have ceramic pie weights those are great because they hold the heat and you know what interestingly also works good old granulated sugar and this is sugar that i repeatedly use for blind making my pie shells i think this is about its third use and you'll notice with each repeated use the sugar no sugar of course you know gets very hot in the heat of the oven so it's helping cook the pie crust not um from the top too you've got the heat source from the bottom the sugar itself is heating the pie pastry but slowly over repeated use the sugar will caramelize a little bit so you can completely use this sugar in your baking in other recipes after you find you know you've done or you're tired of storing it in the cupboard so this replaces the weight you would normally have apples or strawberry rhubarb or peaches and i'm going to pop this in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees then after 20 minutes you slide this out of the oven and then this is why i like to use tin foil because it does not conduct the heat so you can do this with your bare fingers and you remove this again it will be very very hot and you continue to bake this for another eight to ten minutes uh and that's to set the bottom of the shell you'll find the edges are already set and then the bottom will be set after that you let it cool completely and it's time to fill so i'll have you pop that back in the fridge michael thank you so how are we doing can i start the lemon filling um oh and christy's is asking a good question do i have to dock the bottom of the pie shell before i bake i do that with a sweet dough because i don't blind bake it i don't weight it down because i'm weighing this pastry down i don't find i need to blind bake it the weight holds the base in place i also find with pie pastry it doesn't expand the same way um the sweet dough does to fill in where i docked the the pastry oh and let me that was a great question to ask kirsty uh let me bring up a last point i'm gonna show you the pastry that i already baked so we've got a pie shell ready to fill right here and as soon as your pie shell comes out of the oven before you let it cool take an egg white lightly whisk it and with a pastry brush brush the entire bottom and sides with the egg white the heat of the pastry shell will cook that sheer layer of egg white um onto the pastry and that is your waterproof barrier to keep your nice soft lemon meringue pie filling from seeping into the pastry too quickly ultimately after three to four days yes it will happen uh but this really gives you a good barrier so that you rate maintain a crisp and flaky crust under the lemon meringue pie filling then it will cool and it's ready to fill so let me pull my ingredients before you start your lemon meringue filling a couple of things to to bear in mind you are going to want to make your nice tart lemon filling and then your meringue immediately afterwards usually we're so used to waiting for each step of a recipe having to cool completely before the next step you want to apply a meringue onto a warm lemon filling so have all your ingredients ready i'm just i separated my egg yolks ahead of time so i protected them so they didn't dry out i've got my six egg yolks and i've already set aside four whites for the meringue on top of the pie from these yolks i've got my cornstarch water lemon juice and butter so the egg yolks lemon juice and butter get added second but i have right now my one cup of sugar and i'll add to that my corn starch and of course the full recipe is below the screen if you can't see it hit the show more button and it'll pop right up for you it's a humid day here in southern ontario there we go get that cornstarch out um i'll give this a quick stir and then add one cup of water so this is not a typical lemon curd for a french style lemon tart that you do stove top whisking your egg yolks and lemon juice and sugar and melted butter together this is your north american lemon meringue pie so that filling has a lot of volume to it and that's why you have to add the water now the reason i am not adding the lemon juice now is for two reasons i don't want to lose that fresh lemon flavor so i don't want this the lemon juice to be cooking for three to four minutes and i'm just gonna get the heat going on my stove there we go but additionally and this is the key to understanding what happens to lemon meringue pie as it sits in your fridge lemon juice and cornstarch don't actually like hanging out together they're the two key ingredients for this filling but after a while the thickening power of cornstarch breaks down in the presence of the acidity of the lemon juice which is why if you ever have a little bit of leftover lemon meringue pie and you go to the fridge the next day and there's a little puddle sitting in the bottom of the pie plate that's the liquid coming out of your lemon filling because the corn starch is breaking down is there a fix yes you can use what is called modified cornstarch that's what commercial bakeries use and you'll see that their lemon meringue pie doesn't weep but nor does it have that nice homemade texture to it it's a bit thicker and gloppier it almost has a sheer look to it and i have tried playing with other starches like tapioca starch and arrowroot and you don't get the right set the texture is not sliceable uh once it's chilled so what i'm going to do is i want to bring this mixture of sugar water and corn starch up to a boil terribly uninteresting it is not going to look exciting right now it's cloudy you'll know that your corn starch is fully thickened because it will go from cloudy to clear it will have to be bubbling and i'm going to get a trivet so i can bring my pot back over here to add my remaining ingredients so this will take a couple minutes you want to whisk regularly but you don't have to whisk too vigorously we're not making a mousse here so while that's heating up and we've got plenty of time let me take a few questions uh oh a substitute renata's asking about a substitute for cream of tartar when you're whipping your egg whites uh you we can replace that half a teaspoon of cream of tartar renata with white vinegar or lemon juice it's the acidity cream of tartar is simply acidity in a powder form and that allows your egg whites to stretch to a bigger volume so that's why we use it there so any acidity will do the trick great question uh danny's asking does this pie crust recipe work for tartlets it sure does and depending on that tart recipe you still have to blind bake it if you're putting in a cooked filling say you're doing mini quiche you can partially blind bake so the step to fully blind bake i baked with the weights on for 20 minutes then took the weights off and baked for 10 minutes if you're filling it with a quiche or another filling that's going to go back in the oven then you pull the weights off and pull the pan out of the oven because it will go back into the oven to continue cooking that's a great question ahmad hi ahmad is asking can you use rice starch i haven't tested with rice starch i would be leery i i find that this classic lemon meringue pie that sliceable filling and the right texture and mouth feel you know when you take a bite and it's there and you get the burst of fresh lemon juice and then it melts away cornstarch really is the ideal starch let me tell you when i tried with the tapioca starch the word slime comes to mind and that is not a word any of us want to have our friends and family describe our desserts as slimy um and i love all the sort of uh great textured things like uh natta the coconut gel and aloe and tapioca pearls i love all those slippery starchy good things but in a lemoring pie that's not what we're after um ahmad's asking can you replace the lemon with calamansi that delicious tiny super tart lime 100 calamansi meringue pie would be absolutely delicious and so i would use the same volume as lemon juice called for in this recipe that half a cup hello uh to kelby from missouri and oh good question sue do you have to roll the pastry thinner for tartlets yes a little bit thinner just so that whatever you put in the filling you put in you don't overwhelm it um with just a big piece of pastry so that's a very good question to ask i love these questions coming in oh and a good question from chris how many lemons does it take to make half a cup of juice it really depends on your lemons and the time of year but i find you can really get about half a cup here this is in canada and so that means our lemons are coming from [Music] florida or mexico uh central america where you're looking at about three good sized lemons to produce that fresh lemon juice and i swear by fresh lemon juice when you're making a dessert like lemon meringue pie it's all about the lemon and if you're using bottled lemon juice it usually has an added preservative to give it shelf life and you can sometimes taste that a little bit in the aftertaste all right i'm getting some steam but i'm i haven't thickened up yet here with my filling so i'll take a couple of questions oh and we've got tammy has a big question oh not a question just a big thank you well that much appreciated tammy thank you for reaching out and saying hello um and oh joyce is asking how do i make the meringue successfully oh i'm gonna do a whole little piece on uh meringues as soon as i get this filling done so stay with me joyce and we've got a lot of people watching we've got over 300 views now i have to confess you know i like to hit 500 before i announce something and we've got the wonderful rob is moderating our chats read today and we were talking about what should be the next live stream so i have to head out of town a little bit because i'm working on a new project for oem a different production but i should have the capabilities to do a q a session live um and that would be sometime in may so you got to give me a couple of weeks and stay tuned to this channel subscribe if you're not already so that you can be updated and know because then i will be devoted to watching and um answering your baking questions because this is why these live streams are so much fun i'm not just you know you can watch me watch make a lemon and pie anytime but this is our chance to connect as bakers and talk oh and john's asking a good question what is the best meringue for lemon squares now that's where i vary it depends on the base but if you're doing a lemon meringue square you're going to want to use a swiss or an italian meringue which is um pre-cooked and is a little firmer and a little bit sweeter and i'll touch on that more so are you on the oh the sauce cam right now look at that strange clear thickened liquid we've got bubbles happening so now this is where we want to add our egg yolks and we have to be pretty quick about this this is a very hot liquid and i'm tempering this thick gooey liquid into the eggs and now that i've added about half of that liquid i'll add everything back to the pot whisk it in and i'll take it back to the heat for just a minute and i'll also bring over my lemon juice and the butter i will add back here so as you can see it's the egg yolks not the lemon that make your lemon meringue pie filling a beautiful lemony yellow it also serves to thicken up a little bit and i'm just going to give this a moment over the heat grab my fresh lemon juice so i just want the heat of the stove i'm going to turn down the heat a little bit so the egg yolks are cooking out now and i'm adding the lemon juice and i just need this to return to a simmer but i don't want it to look cook too long because i don't want to cook out that fresh lemon flavor so it's just needing to sort of heat up to bond with the other ingredients and then it'll be ready to come off the heat won't i can feel it you don't want to be distracted unlike i am right now having a little visit with you but you actually want to you'll feel it through in your hand through the whisk when it starts to thicken up a little bit almost there when you start to see just a couple bubbles break the surface you know everything is fully cooked there we go and off it comes so the final addition is just a little bit of butter it doesn't the butter doesn't add anything i mean it adds a lovely taste and it thickens a little bit but just like when you're making a pastry cream the function of the butter at this point is to actually cool it down just a little bit so that your filling doesn't continue to cook in the pot so once this has melted we're going to pour it directly into our cooled pie shell remember there's that egg white coating because typically if you're making a cream pie you cool your filling before you put it into your pie shell but not here we want to work with this warm and in it goes now just keep in mind how hot that filling is and we still want to work with it while it is warm but this is where the conversation between the filling and the meringue comes into place so part of the reason we want to work with this warm is if you let it cool completely or chill and then you put the meringue on and put it in the oven you will develop a condensation from the cold filling under the room temperature meringue going into the oven and that creates a slippery meringue that slides off the top of your lemon meringue pie now this will develop a skin if you just leave it so whether it's plastic or i've got a little piece of parchment i'm just going to set that on top of the filling to keep it warm and to keep that layer soft while we make our meringue we're on the home stretch here um and we're doing pretty good on the likes 349 you know i like to see 500 likes this is lemon meringue pie come on give me a thumbs up we've got lots of people watching it's great to see you joining us from around the world oh alison how do we keep that meringue from weeping i'm going to walk you through a whole bunch of steps oh juna hello nice to see you join us it's been a little while so as a note i've got my four egg whites i had to think how many for a second there and this is my icing sugar and my granulated sugar and i just realized i forgot to pull out my cream of tartar which i have right here and i'll add my half a teaspoon of cream of tartar as i mentioned earlier you could use the same measure of a little lemon juice or white vinegar the idea is to make those egg whites as elastic as they can be egg whites at room temperature whip to a higher volume make sure your bowl is nice and clean this is not a task you want to do by hand and just as a note i am making a french meringue so bakers we know you've got your french your swiss and italian french is simply egg whites whisked with sugar swiss you warm your egg whites and dissolve the sugar if you watched my swiss method for making macaron that was four weeks ago that's the method i use or you've got the italian meringue which is where you boil your sugar and add that to your whipping egg whites the italian is the most stable the swiss is nice and glossy the french is mild and airy and light the reason i use a french meringue as opposed to a swiss or italian which is pre-cooked is it takes triple the quantity of sugar in a swiss or italian to give it that structure and volume and i find it just ends up being too sweet as a dessert i like the fluffy light airiness of the french meringue what it means is because a french meringue is not pre-cooked we have to bake it in the oven so make sure you have your oven preheated to 325 fahrenheit that's 160 celsius if you've got a fan setting as low a fan setting as you can or no fan at all because we want to cook this meringue all the way through so the cream of tartar is in there another key to a successful meringue and allison to your point all of these little points are about making a meringue that will stay in place hold its volume not weep on top of your delicious lemon filling that you just went through all that work to make so a medium peak is what we want not a stiff peak because we want room for that marine to grow in the heat of the oven if we whip to the highest volume it will then grow too far and then risk collapsing and shrinking too much on us i've got the combination of granulated sugar and icing sugar for a specific reason icing sugar has a small percentage of cornstarch added to it and cornstarch holds in moisture and so i find that's just a little bit of help to keep the moisture in your meringue and not weep out so the if you see condensation droplets on top of your lemon meringue pie that's actually sugar pulling away from the meringue and that's another reason why you don't want to over whip your egg whites which is why i'm going to slow my mixture down now and so you can add them in any order you wish but in goes the icing sugar and slowly add your granulated so that it has a chance to dissolve fully as you're whipping and as i mentioned our goal is a medium peak here oh hello danny from singapore uh nazira anna ahmad again if i use swiss or italian do you have to bake it great question ahmad so yes you can use a swiss or italian if you wish so as a warning just know it is quite sweet but you don't have to bake it in the oven you can just use a butane torch if you have it a kitchen torch to torch the top of it for that marine color but because you've heated your egg whites already they are fully cooked so that's a very good question to ask aldon is asking can you substitute the pie shell with a crumb crust um you can but remember a crumb crust is very delicate so it suits a filling that's got a little density to it it can work but it might be fragile if you are fond of white chocolate maybe a thin layer of white chocolate along the bottom will just give it a bit of structure and yes you would have to pre-bake the crumb crust 10 minutes in a 350 or 180 celsius oven will do the trick just checking on my egg whites here i'm going to give them another second of five seconds just to bring them up a little bit so don't worry allison i still everything we're doing here is about trying to prevent the weeping or the condensation one two three four five whipping off egg whites you start to get to know what they look like before you even check them there so we've still got some movement they're nice and glossy full volume so let's add this to the top of our pie so the next step in terms of making a meringue topping that doesn't separate weep or become too condensed over top or too much let off too much condensation is to apply the meringue in two steps so first i'm going to dollop half of the meringue on my pie very very gently remember this filling is hot it's also quite fluid at this point needs to be fully chilled to set up okay now gently you want to cover the top of the meringue completely and this is important to help prevent that condensation layer between the filling and the top of the meringue you want to latch that meringue onto the outside pie shell so this secures the meringue in place now it will expand and it will contract a little bit in the oven that's i mean there that's basic science it is out of your control so we're just trying to use the tools we have to compensate for that so making sure that it's actually touching the pie crust helps lock this onto the top of the pie take your time here because you will feel the jiggle of that lemon filling underneath there we go so it's flat and it's level now a little trick i've picked up is to take a bamboo skewer you can use a paring knife and i just draw a few little hooks and i'm not trying to blend the meringue filling with the lemon or the the meringue with the lemon filling but i'm just pulling that meringue into the filling a little bit to create another little latch so that that meringue stays in place on top of the lemon filling when it goes in and out of the oven and then it cools and then it chills completely so now that i have the lemon filling completely covering i can put on the remaining meringue on top of the pie and i'm using the four egg whites because i find if i were to do a meringue with six it can be a little overwhelming and while it looks stunning in photos it can be a lot to manage in terms of enjoying eating it but if you're going for the looks go for the show then you can use six egg whites don't forget to increase your sugar and icing sugar by 50 if you're doing that you need that same proportion of uh the ratio of sugar to egg whites so now it's this top layer is easier to spread on because the base layer is locked into place and i'm going for sort of that traditional lemon meringue pie look you can pipe if you wish once you've got that base layer on and then i'm just going to give a few give the pie a little texture with some swirls and swishes this is all for looks nothing technical here now the key is in your 160 oven or 350 fahrenheit this bakes for 20 minutes we need to cook that meringue fully don't remember unlike a swiss or an italian this has had no heat contact yet so we really want to set it it gives the crust a final set with the filling in it but don't forget you've got that egg white layer in there so in this goes until it's lightly browned on top after it comes out of the oven i am going to set my timer there we go after it comes out this is the critical point when it comes to a lemon meringue pie that does not weep meaning you get those droplets on the top surface of it you have to let the pie cool completely to room temperature and you'll be amazed how hot this pie is you can feel from the bottom of the pie plate it can take two hours for it to cool to room temperature and then you want to chill it so as i mentioned and here we've got one i made this this morning ta-da um you've got to plan your sort of time backwards accordingly so i made this first thing this morning i let it cool admittedly i only cooled it for an hour before i put it in the fridge because i knew i wanted to slice it in time for our live stream and so i've got a slight bit of condensation that is my own fault from putting it in the fridge before it cooled completely so warm pie cold fridge condensation that's what happens um i don't have the big sugar droplets so condensation is just sort of that light shininess when you see those big syrupy droplets come out that is the sign that you over whipped your egg whites so it's two different things so now it's time to slice our pie we've got oh lots of hearts and loves and oh yeah cause it's lemon rank pie oh dala you're asking can i make the curd without eggs you can make a curd without eggs but you're looking at a different recipe i don't have one in the back of my head to pull out as a resource for you but it would take a different style of cooking it and you'll want to replace obviously the lemon color because you won't have the egg yolks in there that's a great question though ahmad unrelated question but still a good one do i have a good uh quinn aman recipe i do i don't think i have it on my website it's definitely not on this channel but i do have one it is from my set for the holidays cookbook and and i love making quinaman now there's a thought something i could do in a live stream someday for those who are new to that pastry it's like making a cuisanto except your final roll and fold of the butter you actually roll not in flour but sugar and that creates a beautiful caramelized layer and you shape it beautifully and bake it in a ramekin or tin and oh it's flaky buttery and sweet at the same time uh oh just we've got some is uh oh cherry hi cherry nice to see you good question so very good point you you've made the lemoring pie and you get the condensation once it happens i'm afraid there's no going back you don't want to touch your meringue because it's just so fragile and delicate the glisten is appealing um but this is where then if you really are worried about it you could switch to a swiss meringue but again i'll warn you it can be very very sweet so now this is always always always the most difficult part of my day is slicing the first slice of pie especially lemon meringue pie you know the second one comes out fine the first one is the trickiest but i hope you could hear that crunch we've got a crust that is not soggy and i've got a very well latched pie crust there we go oh and there it is yum tart and tangy and you can see we've got everything staying in place inside the pie plate but as i mentioned before because lemon juice and cornstarch don't like to hang out together after 24 hours you will find that a syrup leaks out of the filling and the filling contracts a little bit it's just the nature of what those ingredients in combination do together so as i mentioned this is your classic north american lemon meringue pie you've got the nice height of the meringue and it's super light and airy now my filling could it's still actually a touch warm it is not ice cold so that is why i didn't get quite the clean slice i wanted another hour in the fridge and it would slice perfectly but i can tell you it's going to be delicious you can count on this recipe and i know you can do it we've covered a lot pastry making custard making because that's what this lemon filling is and a meringue that lightness in the meringue is why i like the french meringue so much um oh and vichal saying that they made my lemon cream tart that's another great live stream recipe if this style of lemon tart is not to your liking check out my lemon cream tart which is more your classic lemon curd it is really something special and hello tina from melbourne fantastic oh and cherry's asking the question uh can you use calamansi oh cherry go for it please it would be delicious this is a taste of spring for me if you're celebrating easter this weekend this is a delicious absolutely delicious dessert is around the corner so another decadent dessert to celebrate i hope you will consider making this recipe we've got the crust the filling the french meringue that tart oh yeah it's a bit of a pucker tart lemon flavor it's no wonder that lemon meringue pie is a favorite dessert and i know you can make it thank you so much for joining me today and keep an eye on this channel because i will be posting soon what our next live stream will be stay well everyone you

Channel: Oh Yum with Anna Olson

Views: 74,875

Keywords: live with anna olson, live bake along, anna olson, baking with anna olson, baking, follow along, tutorial, youtube recipes, food, cooking, pastry, baker, lemon meringue pie, dessert pie, easter dessert, easter recipe, easy lemon meringue, how to make lemon meringue pie, lemon pie, how to make meringue, how to make, meringue recipe, pie recipe, lemon meringue tart, homemade pie, how to make pie, cook, kitchen, lemon curd, pie crust, simple, meringue pie, anna olson recipes

Id: 9byQhG-gM0s

Length: 55min 26sec (3326 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022