You Pinspire Me
When I saw Sober Julie’s Meringue Cups on Facebook the other day, I knew that I had to try them out. As soon as I saw the photos, my mind started mulling over the possible fillings for such a cute and beautiful dessert vessel! It didn’t take me long to decide that my first go with this recipe would be with a lemon pie filling, making this an Inside Out Lemon Meringue Pie!
It looks like it might be a bit tricky, but I promise you, it’s not. It certainly takes less time than making a pie crust, if you were to make a traditional Lemon Meringue Pie – and it looks WAY more impressive! Just saying.
Forgive my unshowered state.
We had some friends over on Monday night for a Turkey Dinner (my dear husband had no late afternoon appointments, so he decided that he wanted to cook a turkey. Okay by me!) and viewing of the season premier of Game of Thrones, and since I didn’t have to make supper, I thought it was a perfect time to try out a new dessert recipe. I’m fairly certain that our guests enjoyed this creation quite a bit – so thanks, Julie, for the inspiration!! This would make an excellent dessert for Easter family gatherings, if you’re looking for ideas for that!
- 4 egg whites, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 3 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 4 egg yolks
- Preheat oven to 250.
- Whisk egg whites in mixing bowl on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar & vanilla, continue whisking for another 2 minutes.
- Turn mixer to high, and gradually add sugar. When your egg whites are shiny and stiff (if you lift the mixer out of the bowl, the egg whites should form stiff peaks), they're ready to go.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and use a cup or jar to trace circles onto the paper. These will be your templates for piping the meringue.
- Fit a pastry bag (I use disposable plastic ones from the dollar store) with a large open star pastry tip and scoop meringue into the bag.
- Starting in the middle of the traced circle and working your way out, pipe the meringue onto the parchment paper until you're circling the template that you drew. Without lifting the piping bag, circle around on top of the meringue base and pipe a layer or two on the rim.
- Bake in oven for ~45 minutes. (If you want your meringue to be perfectly white, bake at 225 for up to 2 hours. The lower your oven temp, the whiter your meringue. I prefer a quicker baking time with a big more colour.) Let cool on cookie sheets on the counter.
- In small sauce pan, whisk together sugar, flour, cornstarch, & salt. Heat over medium-high heat, and add water & lemon juice, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
- Stir in butter.
- In a small bowl, beat egg yolks, and gradually mix in 1/2 cup of the boiling lemon mixture to the egg yolks.
- Whisk the egg mixture into the sauce pot, and return to a bowl. Stir constantly until thick. Cool.
- Pour cooled lemon filling into cooled meringue cups and serve within an hour.
- The meringue cups will harden as they sit out.
- If serving quite a while after making, store meringue cups in airtight container on the counter, and lemon filling in the fridge. Give the lemon filling a good whisk before scooping them into the cups at time of serving.
Since there were only 5 of us at dinner (plus our little guy), we ended up with a few leftover meringue cups – which Hendrik kept referring to as “Nests.” That, of course, got my brain going again… stay tuned for next week’s post! 😉
Jenn vanOosten
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I would like to come over and eat these. Anything that requires me holding a tube -scares me.
Hah! Well, I personally think that you should just try it out – it’s really fun!! BUT. Should you ever find yourself in my neighbourhood, Kyla, just give me a heads up and I’ll have one waiting for you on the counter. 😉
My. Goodness. Want. Now. AND they’re gluten free, so I can actually eat them! I so need to buy a pastry bag to make these.
Or at least will be when I substitute flour I can have for them. but that’s easy.
There IS a couple TBSP of AP flour in the lemon filling, but I’m sure that you could either skip it or replace it with about half the amount of GF AP flour! Let me know if you try them, Courtney! 🙂