Daring Baker's Meringue Lemon Pie

Not being able to complete last month’s challenge, it felt like ages since my last Daring Baker’s Challenge. This time, Jen form Canadian Baker is our host and she had chosen the Classical Lemon Meringue pie for this Month’s challenge.

I believe I’ve mentioned before how my darling can’t stand the tart flavor of the lemon and that I have to add extra sugar to my lemon tarts to suit his taste. This time, not wanting to add the extra calories to my hips and thighs, and with the gorgeous lemons I’ve found at Whole Foods the other day, I’ve decided to use Meyer Lemons for my lemon meringue Pie. Meyer Lemons are believed to be a cross between real lemons and Mandarin Oranges. They are smaller in size and rounder than a lemon. They also have a light orange color when ripe. They are sweeter and less acidic than the lemons (Eureka and Lisbon) commonly found in the US, this is why I had to reduce the amount of sugar in the filling. Sssweet! Or should I say: Less Sssweet!

The Lemon meringue pie that I regularly make is my mother’s recipe. What differs it from the DB’s one is that my mother’s recipe uses fewer eggs for the filling, no butter and no cornstarch too. When making the filling, although the appearance of the lemon curd was gorgeous and smooth, it took a lot of time to thicken, past boiling point.

The crust was hard to work with at first, and I had to add some extra flour to stop it from sticking. And while the dough was able to hold the filling perfectly out of the pan, it wasn’t as flaky as I like it to be.
The meringue on the other hand was my favorite part: not too sweet and not too egg tasting.

Overall it was a fairly easy challenge, a little time consuming but I would have to say that my mother’s recipe remains my favorite by far.

You can check out the detailed recipe here. Thank you Jen for this lemony Challenge, and be sure to visit my fellow Daring Baker’s for more mouthwatering creations.