Paradise Meringue Pie

This pie happened by accident.  I had a bowl with a bunch of fruit in it sitting on top of Simon.  There were a bunch of limes that were left over from the Coronas at  our surprise party a couple of weeks ago along with a banana and some oranges. 

The limes were starting to turn brown.  I couldn’t bear to throw all of them out, so I decided to make a lime pie.  Most of the recipes I found online used a ton of sweetened condensed milk which is really sugary.   I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, and then I had to do some tweaking.  I actually thought it was going to end up a complete disaster about 1/2 way through. What started out as a “Key Lime Pie”, ended up a citrus-y, coconutty, chocolatey, fluffy light party in my mouth.

Here we go.

Crust Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of crushed oreo cookies (about 2 rows)

1 T butter

Filling ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 T  lime juice
• the juice of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon grated lime zest
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Meringue Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 5 egg whites
• 6 tablespoons white sugar

 

I made the crust ahead of time since it needs to be chilled for an hour or so.

Grind up oreo cookies in your food processor.

Grind them up until they are small crumbs.

Measure out 2 1/2 cups.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter. I use salted because I like a salty sweet combination.

Add the butter to the cookie crumbs.

Mix with a fork until it’s the consistency of wet sand.

Pat the mixture into a pie dish with the back of a spoon.  Cover with plastic wrap and pop it into the fridge to firm up (I forgot to take a picture of the finished crust).

Now, onto the filling.

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks and set the whites aside.

Measure out 1 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 3 tablespoons cornstarch, & 1/4 teaspoon salt. 

Remember, when you’re baking you want to try to be as accurate as possible with your measurements.

Put these ingredients into a pan over medium heat and slowly stir in 2 cups of lukewarm water.  Cook until thickened. (I don’t have a photo of this step because this is right around the time that I realized I was in major trouble)  It should look like cloudy clear-ish  runny pudding. Ew. Once it thickens, shut the heat.

I hope you guys are smarter than I am, and actually read the entire recipe before you make it.  The recipe called for 1/4 cup of lime juice.  Since I had a billion limes, I figured this wouldn’t be an issue.  The fact that I don’t own a juicer didn’t hit me until this point.  UGH!  I was going to squish all of the juice out by hand. 

Roll the lime on the counter using firm pressure to  loosen up the juices.

I sliced them in half and got to squeezing. The amount of juice to actually come out of each lime was like 1/4 teaspoon.  Seriously. 

 I squeezed them all and ended up with about 2 tablespoons.  I was panicking now.  The pudding was getting too cool and I was desperate.  This pie was no longer key lime.  I grabbed an orange and squeezed out the juice of one until I ended up with 1/4 cup of citrus juice.

The next ingredient I needed was 1 tablespoon of lime zest.  This is when I got so frantic I was literally flapping my arms around my kitchen.  I don’t own a zester.  Or a cheese grater.  I got a serrated steak knife and started to shave off the lime peels.  This was ridiculous.  I was literally sweating now.  Here’s the embarassing shot of zesting Mindy Style. 

 

This is what I ended up with at the end of “zesting” one lime with a steak knife (with a paper cut that was screaming from the lime juice).

Pathetic.

This is what a flustered cook’s counter looks like.

That’s precious lime zest strewn all over the countertop.  I could not control where it fell.  UGH!

In the words of Modest Mouse and Lupe Fiasco, The Show Goes On.

Pre-heat your oven to 425.

Take your 3 beaten egg yolks from before and add them into the clear flavorless pudding in a bowl. Beat until smooth.

 

Pour this mixture back into the pot. Stir over medium heat for 2 minutes or until the mixture forms thick ribbons when stirred.   Add in your zest, citrus juice, 1T butter, 1/4 t coconut extract, and 1/4 t vanilla extract to the pot.

Let it cool slightly.

Now, my favorite part.  Meringue!!!

Add 5 egg whites to a very clean and very dry mixing bowl.   Using a whisk attachment, beat until frothy. Now add in your cream of tartar, and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Gradually add in 6 tablespoons of sugar until meringue looks shiny.

Pour your cooled off pudding into the pie crust. 

Plop your meringue on top of it all.  I tried to make it pretty, failing miserably.  I don’t know how those people at the diner make their pies look so amazing!  This stuff is hard to work with. 

Put it in the oven for about 8 minutes or until the meringue starts to turn golden brown (or walk away & forget about it and the peaks turn black!  HAHAH!) .  Let pie cool.  Serve!  Phew!  Oh the drama!

The end result of this panic-stricken cluster f#%& was surprisingly delicious!  It is my new favorite pie!  I couldn’t eat the crust because I gave up chocolate desserts for Lent, but the filling and fluffy meringue was insane!

 Holy long winded post.  If you’ve made it this far, yay for you!

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Do you follow recipes or do you improvise?  What’s your favorite “I made it by accident” recipe ?