Traditional Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• Grated peel of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
• 1 baked (9-inch) pie crust

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and cornstarch. Gradually stir in the water until smooth, then stir in the egg yolks.
2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat (see Notes – part of this step is cut off).
3. Spoon the hot filling into the cooled pie crust.
4. For the meringue: in a small bowl, beat the egg whites with a mixer at high speed until foamy. Combine the sugar and cornstarch, then gradually beat it into the egg whites. Keep beating until stiff peaks form.
5. Spread the meringue evenly over the hot filling, sealing it to the edge of the crust.
6. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the meringue is golden. Cool on a wire rack at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

Notes

Makes 8 servings.

This is the classic recipe once printed on the Argo Corn Starch package. Readers of the column sent it in for Maggie Edwards of Cornish Flat, New Hampshire; it also appears in Ceil Dyer’s cookbook “Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars”. Alice Cook of Eureka, Kansas, a June bride in 1949, learned to make it on a gas stove with the oven on the side.

The bottom of the first column runs past the edge of the scan, so a line of step 2 is missing after “Remove from”. The lemon peel, lemon juice and butter are not mentioned in the visible steps; they are normally stirred in right after the filling comes off the heat.

From a “Recipe Box” reader-recipe column in a farm magazine that Rosie Lee saved; the whole page is shown below.

Photo: stock photo found online.

Rosie Lee’s original recipe card

Tap the card to see it full size.