Lemon Meringue Pie

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Skeptic7. I have also used this crust for pumpkin pie. It will hold up very well to blind baking, unlike my previous recipe that would collapse, even when refrigerated. It is also the easiest pie crusts I have used for rolling out and shaping. I like the flavor better than my previous recipe, and it is flakier.

I've used it for blueberry pie, peach pie, and pumpkin pie. I plan to try it with cherry pie and see how it works as a lattice top.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.

[skeptic7]

I did another lemon meringue pie with buttermilk crust the week before last. The crust was better. I handled it less and added less liquid and refrigerated before baking. I basically did a half recipe with 1 1/2 cups of white flour, 1/2 cup butter and about 6 tablespoons of buttermilk. I mixed it, refrigerated the dough, rolled it out and placed it back in the refrigerator before baking. However I tried a new method suggested by Susan Purdy in her pie book. I placed a pie pan upside down and put the rolled pie crust on top of it, then I covered it with another pie pan and put the whole thing in a deep dish pizza pan instead of a baking sheet. This has the pie crust sandwiched between two pie pans. I was suppose to be able to bake this for half the time, and then flip it over, take out the internal pie pan, and finish baking it.
Well this didn't work as planned, mainly because the pie crust stuck to the internal pie pan and wouldn't come loose. I had to bake the pie crust nearly completely and than carefully pry them apart. And then finish baking it. The crust was crisp and golden in the middle but a little too hard and brown at the edges. And it wasn't as pretty since I couldn't do a pretty fluted edge and the rim had broken in places.
I plan to try this again tonight, but this time use a normal pie pan and bend the edges over the rim to keep it from sliding down. Also I will keep this refrigerated until the time to put it in a very hot oven. I think not being in a pie pan sandwich will let it be softer and lighter.
I used the KA 200 Anniversery lemon meringue which is made with boiling water, and flour not corn starch. The boiling water makes the lemon filling cook faster than using cold water which made for less time standing over a hot stove. Very important two weeks ago as it was hot even late at night and I needed the air conditioner on all the time. The lemon filling tasted ok, but not as lemony as the recipe by Susan Purdy. It had slightly less lemon juice 1/4 instead of 1/3.
I think I will have to look for still another lemon meringue recipe, I want more lemon flavor but also appreciate the speed of using boiling water.

[Mike Nolan]

I have had very good luck with the Norpro non-stick pie pan. After the pie is baked, you just slide it out onto a plate (or into a regular pie pan), that way you don't damage the non-stick surface by cutting the pie in the pan. Sometimes you have to twist the pie pan a bit to get it free, but most of the time it is loose.

I've made cherry, apple and pecan pies in it, plus a chocolate creme pie with meringue in a blind baked graham cracker crust; all came out easily.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic7--Are you trying to blind bake the crust so that you can remove it from the pan, or is the issue that the crust is collapsing during the blind baking? If it is the second, I've had good luck using a large commercial coffee filter to line the pan and filling it with beans. I follow the Cooks Illustrated directions for blind baking in terms of time, so I lift the filter out after a certain point, and then complete the bake. The large coffee filters were a KAF suggestion in a thread on the former baking circle. I was able to buy part of a box at a kitchen supply store. I will likely not blind bake enough crusts to use up what I bought.

Avoid those ceramic "pie beads." I tried them one year, and they get too hot and mess up the crust. I've not tried the metal pie chains, but they might cause a similar issue. In this case, low-tech is best and certainly a lot cheaper!

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

I have a tupperware container of pie beans, that's what they used at pastry school, too. I've never tried the coffee filter idea because we don't drink coffee and the large commercial coffee filters only seem to be available in packages of 500 or more. So I just use parchment or aluminum foil.

[Rascals1]

Mike where did you find the norpro non stick pie pan? ive never used amazon.

[Rascals1]

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/221034/meyer-lemon-pie/ hope this helps.
http://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/recipes/a42431/meyer-lemon-meringue-pie/

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Rascals1.

[Mike Nolan]

I got it from The Prepared Pantry, http://preparedpantry.com, (look for non-stick pie pan), but googling 'norpro pie pan' finds other sources, though it may not be the same item.

[Rascals1]

Thank you Mike will make good Christmas Presents

[Mike Nolan]

I use pie beans when blind baking a pie shell, I have a Tupperware container of them, probably enough to do 2 pies. (At SFBI they had a huge tub of pie beans, you need to fill the pie pan quite full.)

I generally use parchment, like we did at pastry school, or sometimes tin foil. We don't drink coffee and you have to buy the commercial-sized filters in large quantity, I think the smallest package I've seen was 500. I do have 8 and 9 inch parchment rounds, but those are for making cakes.

*Note, this post sort of duplicates an earlier post that I wasn't sure posted, because my computer crashed.

[skeptic7]

Yes I was trying to use two pie pans for blind baking. I had picked them up in a thrift store, they are similiar size and a heavy metal, but the inside pie pan is perforated. This is the first time I tried blind baking with this technique and I wasn't impressed with the results.
This mornings pie shell slid to the bottom despite having been well pricked and going from the refrigerator to a very hot oven. I thought that the first failed attempt was caused by an oven at only 325 degrees and resolved to try again at 400 degrees.
The pie crust was rather thick. I used all the dough ( 1 1/2 cups flour ) in the crust instead of rolling it thin, and discarding the extra. Would a blind pie crust have worked better if it was thinner?
I did the KA Lemon Meringue again but used corn starch instead of flour, and 1/3 cup lemon juice instead of 1/4 cup. It isn't notably prettier with corn starch instead of flour. The lemon meringue filling was fine and pretty.
I want to try blind baking again, but will have to wait for another cold snap. How much beans will be needed if I try that route? Do the beans have to fill the pie crust?
Maybe I will try the two pie pan method and use parchment paper to prevent sticking.

[Mike Nolan]

A standard depth 9 inch pie pan will hold about 2 pounds of beans, an 8 inch pie pan about a pound and a half. That's when the pie pan is empty, ie, without a pie crust or the parchment, it'll take a bit less than that when you're blind baking a pie crust.

I haven't measured my 10 or 12 inch pie pans, and a deep dish pan will take more beans than a regular depth pan, of course. You do need to fill it pretty much level with the rim.

You either need to store them in a heat-proof container or have something heat safe you can pour them into after blind baking a pie crust, because they will take a while to cool down and you want to let the pie crust start cooling by removing the beans shortly after taking the blind baked pie crust out of the oven. Some blind baking instructions have you remove the beans before the pie crust is fully blind baked, putting the pie crust back in the oven. I pour them into a big metal mixing bowl, then back in the tupperware container after they're cool. Bugs don't seem to like dried bean much, and especially not after they've been used for blind baking.

Once you use the beans to bake a pie, you don't want to cook them (like for bean soup), but you can reuse them many times. Go buy a 5 pound bag of beans at a big-box store.

Somewhere I've got some notes on how much pie crust (by weight) you need for various sizes and depths of pie pans. I don't want to lead anyone astray by guessing.

[BakerAunt]

I've used foil as well as parchment to line pie pans for blind baking. The only advantage I found with the industrial coffee filters is that they fit nicely inside without fussing. S. Wirth mentioned being able to buy them through an office supply store. However, as Mike notes, they come in bulk, even when like me you are able to buy just part of a box. However, they are nice for lining large ceramic bowls that are stacked.

Cooks Illustrated also said that crusts that are mostly butter as the fat do not do as well in blind baking. They had a different recipe, with different proportions and maybe slightly more flour, for the blind-baked crust. However, the buttermilk crust that I've been using does fine whether blind baked or baked with the pie.

[Mike Nolan]

I make an all-butter pie dough, I haven't had any problems blind-baking it.

[skeptic7]

I'm eating through the lemon meringue pie which is in the refrigerator. It seems to be emitting a liquid as it ages. Anyone know what causes this?
I'm not sure whether to go on my fourth blind baking pie crust trial or not. I'd like to get a nice flaky crust. What other sort of pies use a prebaked crust? I'm almost through with the lemon juice.

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