Source: Pastry and lemon curd from Fearless in the Kitchen by Christine Cushing, Italian meringue from Fine Cooking #38 (also at FineCooking.com)
Lemon meringue pie is great it so many ways. For one, it’s a very refreshing dessert after a heavy meal. Second, lemons are available all year long, so it’s perfect for the winter when other fruit are not in season.
My go-to recipe for lemon meringue pie comes from Christine Cushing’s Fearless in the Kitchen book (which was my very first cookbook).
But I recently stumbled upon a lemon meringue pie recipe from Fine Cooking with so much meringue that it’s almost funny.
The extreme height is achieved by making an Italian meringue. Italian meringue is made by whipping egg whites with a hot sugar syrup. This makes a much more stable meringue.
Instead of abandoning Christine Cushing, I decided to keep the best of both worlds, and combine her lemon curd with the Italian meringue.
And the results were astounding, if not a little laughable. I like to call this my meringue pie with lemon. The presentation is amazing, and if you’re comfortable working with boiling sugar, this dessert comes together relatively easily. A definite crowd-pleaser.