Lemon Meringue Pie

I made a lemon meringue pie the other day, and I haven't wanted to bake anything else since. So, I basically haven't. I've baked three in the last two weeks. That's a lot of pie. I rationalized eating this pie all the time by telling myself that it contained fruit and eggs - that's basically healthy, right?

I'd recommend baking this in a deep pie dish. One of the times I baked this, I didn't have a pie dish so I baked it in a casserole with a lid. That actually worked extremely well because I didn't have to worry about the plastic wrap harassing the meringue. It looked kind of funny, though.

Lemon Meringue Pie - from Food Noveau

Ingredients

• Pre-baked pie crust (I'm lazy and I use the pre-made pie crusts from the grocery store that you just roll out - follow the directions on the box for baking a cold pie)
• 1/2 C Unsalted butter
• 3/4 C Lemon juice (fresh is best, but again, I'm lazy so I often use Costco's bottled lemon juice)
• 3/4 C Sugar
• Zest from one lemon
• Pinch of Salt
• 6 Eggs - separate the whites for the meringue from 3 of the eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 7 TBSP Sugar

Instructions

1. Bake the pie crust according to the directions on the box or your standard recipe. After, turn the oven temperature down to 375.
2. In a saucepan, put in the butter, 3/4 C of sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Turn the heat on low and whisk until melted.
3. In a bowl, beat together 3 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks.
   
4. After the butter mixture is fully melted, spoon some slowly into the egg mixture and stir. Do this a few more times, to raise the temperature of the egg mixture slowly.
   
5. Off heat, pour the egg mixture into the saucepan with the butter mixture. Put it back on the heat, and whisk constantly.
   
6. If the eggs start to scramble - hopefully this doesn't happen - pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer.
   
7. Cook mixture until it begins to thicken. You will notice this as you drag your whisk across the mixture and the the lines you leave close up more slowly. This takes about 6-8 minutes.
8. Pour the mixture into the baked pie crust and bake for 12 minutes. Take the pie out of the oven. It will still be rather jiggly, but don't worry.
9. For the meringue, beat the eggs with an electric mixer on high until soft peaks form. If you're not sure what type of peak you're looking for, check this out. After the soft peaks form, add in the vanilla extract. Turn the mixer back on and spoon in the sugar one tablespoon at a time. After all the sugar is added, beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.
   
10. After the meringue is mixed, spoon or pipe the mixture onto the pie. Make sure you take the meringue all the way to the outer edges, as it will shrink as it cools and this will keep the yellow part of the pie from being exposed.
11. Put the pie back in the oven. If you have an electric oven, turn the oven to broil; if it's gas, just leave it at 375. Watch the pie, and take it out when the meringue starts to brown. This takes about 3-5 minutes, depending on your oven. Seriously though, watch it!
12. Remove the pie and cool for at least 5 hours, preferably overnight. Let the pie sit out of the oven but not in the refrigerator for about an hour, as this minimizes the chance of the meringue cracking. Then cover and refrigerate.