Ingredients
- 1 pie crust (for 9-inch pie) I use Trader Joes
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- ⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 ½ cups water
- 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- ¾ cup lemon juice
Meringue
- 3 egg whites
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Bake pie crust according to package or recipe instructions. Allow to cool.
- Heat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, beat egg yolks with fork. Set aside.
- In a large saucepan, mix together sugar and cornstarch. Slowly stir in water and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir for 1 minute.
- Immediately stir one spoonful at a time of the hot mixture into the egg yolks, Stir quickly so egg doesn’t fry and bring yolks up to hot mixture temp. Then stir the combined yolks-sugar-cornstarch mixture back into the remaining hot mixture in the saucepan, again careful not to fry the egg mixture. Boil and stir for 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Stir in butter, lemon zest and lemon juice. Pour into cooled pie crust.
- In a medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar on high speed until foamy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form. Once your meringue is stiff and glossy, beat in vanilla.
- Carefully spoon meringue onto hot pie filling, spreading all the way to the edge of the crust. Make peaks in the meringue.
- Bake at 400 until meringue is brown; or use broiler setting to brown; or use kitchen torch.
