Lemon Pie
1 1/2 tablespoons corn-starch 1 cup water 1 tablespoon butter 1 cup sugar 1 lemon 1 egg-white 1 to 3 tablespoons sugar Mix the corn-starch in a little of the cold water and bring the rest of the water to the boiling-point. Add the moistened corn-starch and cook until transparent. Add the butter, sugar, lemon-juice and grated rind and set aside to cool. Beat the mixture well and turn into a baked crust. Make a meringue with the stiffly beaten white of egg and sugar. Brown the meringue and serve the pie cold.
A plain cornstarch lemon filling with no yolks in it — quicker and paler than the custard-style lemon pie most cooks know. The whole egg white goes into the meringue.
- Cook the starch properlyThe hinge is the phrase "cook until transparent." Cornstarch has to boil for a minute or two after it thickens, or the filling tastes chalky and slackens as it cools. Stir constantly over medium heat.
- Add lemon off the heatThe recipe already does this, and it matters: acid breaks down cornstarch, so the juice goes in after cooking is finished, not before.
- Pan sizeOne cup of water plus a cup of sugar should make roughly enough filling for an 8-inch baked shell rather than a deep 9-inch one; five or six modest servings.
- The meringue sugar"1 to 3 tablespoons" is left to taste; 2 tablespoons per egg white is the usual ratio and gives a meringue that holds. Beat the white to soft peaks first, then add sugar a spoonful at a time.
- One white is a thin lidA single egg white covers an 8-inch pie only just. Two whites with 4 tablespoons sugar gives the deep meringue modern readers expect.
- Browning temperatureThe recipe gives no oven temperature, only "brown the meringue." A moderately hot oven does it: roughly 400F for a few minutes for colour, or about 350F for 12 to 15 minutes if you want it dried through rather than just coloured. Watch it; the sugar goes from gold to scorched quickly.
- Weeping and shrinkingSpreading meringue on a cold filling, as directed here, is often blamed for a watery layer underneath. Seal the meringue to the crust edge all the way round, and if you can, spread it while the filling is still warm.
- CoolingServe cold, as the original says, but cooling at room temperature rather than in the refrigerator is the usual advice; quick chilling is often blamed for beading.