More: The Vicious Babushka: IT’S PIE DAY! the Lemon Meringue Pie

We have not had a Pie Day! in a while, and we also neglected to even post to this blog during Hanukkah while we were on vacation in Alabama.

Anyway this Lemon Meringue Pie was made the old-fashioned way and took over an hour of back breaking hard work so try it out! Then guilt your holiday guests into giving you great presents because of your awesome pie skillz.

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED:

Food processor
Stand mixer with whisk attachment
Hand whisk
2-qt. saucepan
1-qt. saucepan
9-inch pie pan
Egg separator
Measuring cups & spoons
Prep bowls
Rolling pin
Plastic wrap
Parchment paper
Pie weights (or raw beans or rice)
Cooling rack
Candy thermometer

THE CRUST.

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. Crisco
1/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. ice water

Preheat the oven to 425.

We use Crisco baking bars for the pie shortening. The baking bars should be kept in the freezer. Rose Levy Birnbaum, the author of the “Pie and Pastry Bible” thinks that if you use Crisco in pie crust you are lame and stupid and fat, and you should probably be taken out and shot or at least imprisoned for high Pie Crimes. But you can have my Crisco when you scoop it out of my cold, greasy fingers. You can use butter if you prefer.

Anyway. Combine the flour and salt in the food processor bowl. Cut the frozen Crisco into dice-size pieces, add to the flour mixture and pulse until you get pea-size lumps of Crisco & flour. Add the ice water 1 Tbsp at a time, pulse after each Tbsp, until you get a ball of dough.

Roll out the dough and place in the bottom of a 9-inch deep dish pie pan. Cover the dough with parchment and fill the parchment with pie weights. If you don’t have pie weights, you can use raw beans or rice to hold down the pie crust so that it doesn’t puff up.

Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes. Remove the parchment and pie weights, and bake for another 15 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Remove from oven and cool.

Or you can skip this whole step and use a frozen pie crust.

- See the whole recipe at: viciousbabushka.com