Vera's Recipes

Pies And Pastries

Lemon-Lime Meringue Pie

Pies And Pastries
Serves 10
10 ingredients
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Ingredients

  • 1 pastry crust
  • 3 large lemons
  • 2 small limes
  • ½ cup cornstarch
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • about 1 1/4 cups total (3/4 cup filling, 1/2 cup meringue) sugar
  • 6 eggs, separated, at room temperature
  • 2 tbsp 1/4 stick butter or margarine
  • ¼ tsp cream of tartar
  • 2¼ cup water

Method

  1. Prepare and bake the pastry crust; cool.
  2. While the crust is baking, grate the peel from 2 lemons and 1 lime. With a vegetable peeler, shave the peel from the remaining lemon and lime into long strips; wrap in plastic wrap; reserve for garnish. Squeeze 2/3 cup lemon juice from the lemons and 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon lime juice from the limes.
  3. In a 2-quart saucepan, stir the cornstarch, salt and 3/4 cup sugar. Stir in 2 1/4 cups water; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils and thickens; boil 1 minute. Remove the saucepan from heat.
  4. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks; stir in a small amount of the hot cornstarch mixture until blended; slowly pour the yolk mixture back into the hot cornstarch mixture in the saucepan, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping. Return the saucepan to heat; cook, stirring constantly, until the filling is very thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in the butter, then gradually stir in the lemon and lime juice and grated lemon and lime peel. Pour the filling into the crust.
  5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare the meringue: In a small bowl, with a mixer at high speed, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form; gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition until the sugar completely dissolves and the meringue stands in stiff, glossy peaks.
  6. Spoon the meringue into a large decorating bag with a large star tube. Pipe the meringue in a pretty design on top of the filling. Bake 5 to 10 minutes until the meringue is golden. Cool the pie on a wire rack, then refrigerate (if the pie is not cooled before refrigerating, the meringue will weep).
  7. To serve, cut the reserved lemon and lime peel into matchstick-thin strips. Garnish the pie with the lemon-and-lime-peel strips. Makes 10 servings. About 305 calories per serving.

Notes

Begin about 4 hours before serving or early in the day.

Original card

The recipe above was transcribed from this scan of Vera’s original card.