When Life Gives You Lemons...

I realize I'm about a week late on this -- shame on me! -- but I decided to go ahead and post my January Daring Bakers challenge anyway. Better late than never, right? This month the DB were assigned the challenge of a Lemon Meringue Pie, which my Mom was quite happy about because it's one of her favorites and I had planned to cook it while I was home visiting. My boyfriend Joe also did me the honor of being my talented and attentive sous-chef.


The recipe we were assigned was a bit challenging. The dough was the difficult part for me -- it didn't hold together very well, and it ended up being a bit too thick (and, in my opinion, too sweet). If I were to make lemon meringue pie again, I'd definitely use my own pie crust recipe, which always serves me well. The lemon custard part was easy, except that Joe and I got to the part where you're supposed to add the lemon juice and realized that we had forgotten to pick the lemons off the lemon tree. So I had Joe stand over the stove stirring the custard, to make sure it stayed smooth, while I sprinted out back and picked a half a dozen lemons from our tree. In the end, no harm done, and the custard was delicious with the fresh juice. The meringue itself was super easy and turned a pretty golden brown in the oven.


The recipe warned that the pie should be eaten within 6 hours, but we ignored that advice and kept it in the refrigerator for leftovers. In fact, the pie was even better (we thought) chilled the next day. (Oh, and sorry for the poor picture quality -- I took these pics in my Mom's kitchen, which has the worst lighting ever.)


To see hundreds of other takes on this Lemon Meringue Pie, head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll. If you're feeling particularly daring, you can find the recipe over at this month's host's site, The Canadian Baker.