daring baker's challenge: lemon meringue pie

pucker up!

this was my first daring baker's challenge. even in this short month, i have learned so much, read many a cool blog, and "met" some very awesome fellow bakers. lemon meringue pie was chosen by jen at the canadian baker. i was excited because this recipe was quite different than others that i am used to. there were a couple of things that made me pause ... like the cornstarch thickening method, the lack of mentioning the fork prick for blind baking (although that could have been somewhere else in the book, and assumed throughout for the recipes), the long heating time, and adding the juice at the end of the thickening process. but one baker's worries are another baker's quirks so i was looking forward to seeing whether this would all come together.

unfortunately it did not!

nice crust
first, the good ... i would have preferred a pâte brisée crust, but i was super excited that for my the first time i was really patient, and trusting, about the crust. typically i overwet my dough, because it seems incredulous that something so dry and crumbly can come together for a dough. it tastes okay, but is never as flaky as i hope. this time, i really put faith in the process. when i balled it up to refrigerate i was like this is never going to work. but when i rolled it out, it was perfect, or at least as close to perfect as it has ever been!! so score one for the crust.

lemon soup?
but now the bad ... my lemon curd was coming along beautifully, thick and smooth. then i added the lemon juice and it became a watery disaster. now, this could be a case of bad recipe method, or my worries willed it to happen, or just plain bad luck. but in any case, it wasn't salvageable. i did fill the pie, and topped with meringue, but the filling just never came to set.

all in all, i'm so happy i tried this out. it's not ending up as one of my favorite recipes for lemon meringue pie, but it's been such fun trying it out with the other daring bakers! i look forward to what next's month challenge brings!!
because there was such inconsistent results by my fellow daring bakers, i can't whole heartedly encourage others to use this recipe. but because some people did have success, if you want to try it yourself, go to jen's blog here.

and to read everyone else's lemon meringue challenge, visit the daring baker's blogroll!

well, it did look pretty on the outside!