My mother once told me that during threshing time in Kansas, her grandmother used to make two pies a day and would feed the hired hands a big midday meal. For me, pies are a labor of love - far too much work to do for just anyone (mine are made from scratch. No frozen pie dough for me!!) But for my family, I am happy to go to the trouble of making them their favorites.
Today is Father's Day, and Craig requested I make him a lemon meringue pie. I thought it would be fun to document the steps.
First, you begin with the dough. This picture is of everything needed to make the crust for one double crust pie (such as apple or cherry) or two single crusters (lemon meringue). A little daunting, isn't it?
Stir 2 cups of flour into a bowl along with a teaspoon of salt. Then, using a knife, cut 3/4 cup of Crisco vegetable shortening into slabs and drop into the flour/salt mixture.
Using a pastry cutter, begin cutting the shortening into the flour. (You can do this with a Kitchen Aide, but the crust will be a bit tougher as a result.)
Keep blending, using a rocking motion, and pulling up flour from the bottom of the bowl.
When the dough looks like coarse crumbs and all the loose flour is incorporated, you are ready for the next step.
Ice water! You can use cold tap water, but experience tells me the colder the better, so I use ice water.
At least 6 tablespoons, added 2 at a time, and then generally I add another one or two.
Stir/toss gently with a fork after each addition of ice water.
The dough should be holding together in larger lumps, but not wet and sticky.
I use a plastic mat to roll the dough on. This one came from Rural King and cost maybe $5. It works better than a wooden board or the bare countertop. (Clean up is easy!) Sprinkle the mat with some flour and roll the rolling pin in it to spread it around and to lightly coat the pin.
Use your bare hands (don't flour them - this will make the dough fall apart!) to gather half the pie dough and form into a ball. Press together but do not knead - the real secret to a great pie crust is to handle the dough as little as possible. Never, ever re-roll a crust - it will be tough and tasteless. Throw it out and start over.
After the dough is rolled out, hold the pie plate over it to make sure you have rolled the dough out big enough to cover the plate. Don't forget that the sides of the plate must be covered, too, so roll it out well beyond the circumference of your pie plate.
To transfer the dough to the pie plate, roll the dough up on the rolling pin.
Roll all the dough up. Work quickly. An especially tender dough may break if you are not careful.
Set the pin with the dough on it on the edge of the pie plate, and then unroll it, turning the pan to help it fit right.
Again, make sure you remember that the sides of the pan need to be covered.
Once the dough is safely in the pie plate, begin fluting the edges. I put my left thumb on the rim, and then use my right forefinger and thumb to pinch the dough up. I rotate the pan counterclockwise to get the entire rim.
A close-up of the fluting. I tear some of that extra dough off gently before putting the pie in to bake. I also leave some because my family likes to nibble! (See the last picture in this blog entry.)
For lemon meringue pie, the shells need to be baked before putting the filling in. This takes 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees. Watch carefully as sometimes the thinner fluted edges may begin to burn.
Okay, that only took about 45 minutes, but now we have two perfect baked pie shells, ready to be filled with lemon meringue!
This is the recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The books is so old and this recipe so used that the pages are falling out of the book.
I always mark my recipes when I make them so that in the future I know whether or not we liked something, any changes I made, etc. Wow, I first made this pie for Craig in 1987 for his 35th birthday!
Now I assemble all the ingredients for the pie filling as well as for the meringue topping. A lot, huh?!
Today my mother came to the rescue - I did not have enough cornstarch to make the pie, and it was Sunday so I was not going to the store to get more. So I called her to borrow some. But look closely at her pants leg.
That would be cornstarch - she had a problem transporting it. We ended up with about 5 tablespoons, and I needed 6, but went ahead anyway with the pie.
Separating the eggs. The yolks go into the filling, the whites are made into the meringue. Hint: even ONE little speck of yolk in the white will ruin your meringue. Separate your eggs carefully!
Sugar, water, flour, and cornstarch simmering for several minutes. Then I will add the yolks and lemon juice and simmer again.
The filling is poured into the baked pie shells. Looking good! And one last step - making the meringue.
This recipe comes from the same book, and like the other page, has been pulled out of the book through use over the years. Looks like I dribbled some vanilla on the page in the past, too.
Whipping the egg whites with vanilla and cream of tartar at high speed until soft peaks form.
Sugar is added and the whites are whipped to stiff peaks. The meringue should be very white and almost glossy.
Half the meringue goes on each pie. It is better to dot it around rather than dump it all out in one spot - makes for easier spreading. (Do this while the filling is hot.)
I use a spreader to gently push and pull the meringue out to the crust to "seal" the pie. Usually the meringue shrinks a bit and you can see the lemon filling, but that does not alter the taste of the pie.
Ready to go back into the oven the brown the meringue. We're almost done now!
Now THAT's pie!! A finished pie is truly beautiful.
A close up of the sealed crust (it remained sealed this time). I love that beautiful golden brown color on the meringue.
A final caution - be prepared for this to happen!! (A good reason to leave some of the crust edges on the pie after fluting!)
