Lemon meringue pie
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox food Lemon meringue pie is a dessert pie consisting of a shortened pastry base filled with lemon curd and topped with meringue.
HistoryEdit
Fruit desserts covered with baked meringue were found beginning in the 18th century in France. Menon's pommes meringuées are a sort of thick apple sauce or apple butter covered with baked meringue in his 1739 cookbook.<ref>Menon (pseud.), Nouveau traité de la Cuisine, v. 2, p. 91</ref> A custard flavored with "citron" ('lemon') and covered with baked meringue, crême meringuée, was published by 1769 in English,<ref>B. Clermont, The Professed Cook, 2nd edition, 1769, p. 426</ref> apparently a translation of an earlier edition of Menon (1755?).<ref>anonymous (Menon), Les soupers de la cour, 1778, vol. 3, p. 86></ref> Similar recipes cooked in a crust appear in 19th century America: apple pie covered with meringue, called 'apple a la turque' (1832)<ref>A Boston Housekeeper (Mrs. N. K. M. Lee), The Cook's Own Book and Housekeeper's Register</ref> and 'apples meringuées' (1846).<ref>Louis-Eustache Audot, French Domestic Cookery, 1846, p. 206</ref> A generic 'meringue pie' based on any pie was documented in 1860.<ref>Mrs. T.J. Crowen, American Lady's System of Cookery, New York, 1860, s.v. "Meringue Pie", p. 256</ref> The name 'Lemon Meringue Pie' appears in 1869,<ref>American Agriculturalist 28:7:p. 262 (New Series, No. 270)</ref> but lemon custard pies with meringue topping were often simply called lemon cream pie.<ref>Rufus Estes, Good Things to Eat, as Suggested by Rufus, 1911, p. 89</ref> In literature one of the first references to this dessert can be found in the book 'Memoir and Letters of Jenny C. White Del Bal' by Rhoda E. White, published in 1868.<ref>White, Rhoda E. Memoir and Letters of Jenny C. White del Bal, page 212</ref> A chocolate meringue variant exists.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
PreparationEdit
A stiff lemon-flavored custard is prepared with egg yolks, lemon zest and juice, sugar, and sometimes starch and baked in a pie crust. Uncooked meringue, usually shaped into peaks, is spread over the top, sometimes with a sprinkle of sugar, and briefly baked.