#88 – In Search of the Perfect Meringue

Side note: The word “meringue” is nearly impossible for me to spell correctly. It’s on the list of words to look up every time, along with “hors d’oeuvres”and “vacuum.”

My mountain of cookbooks is threatening to topple over on me. I’m seriously fearful – both of suffering a non-cooking-related cookbook injury and of not finishing my goal of cooking one recipe from every cookbook I own by November 2012. It’s looking pretty grim at this point.

I forced myself to sit with a randomly selected stack of cookbooks and pick something, anything, from them to make over the past two weeks.

Another side note: I’m a sucker for lemon meringue pie. The Boy greatly dislikes lemon meringue pie – it’s too tart. He’s got a sweet tooth, so I suppose I must have a sour tooth. But truthfully, I think that I love the meringue more than the filling. Recently, I found an interesting recipe for an “easy” meringue in an issue of Cooking Light. This is relevant. I promise.

When flipping through A Taste of Heaven, a cookbook produced by our former church, I found a recipe for a Perfect Chocolate Pie.

A “Perfect” Chocolate Pie? And one that uses ingredients that I already have in the pantry? Sold. Plus it would be a good opportunity to make the meringue recipe I’d discovered. (See – I told you it was relevant.)

I’m not going to give you the recipe for the perfect chocolate pie. Not because it wasn’t a perfect chocolate pie – it was in fact a very good chocolate pie.

No, a better title for the recipe would be: A Perfect Chocolate Pie Presented in an Imperfect Recipe.

The danger, my friends, with cooking from a church cookbook is that it’s a Forrest Gump experience – and this one even involved chocolate. (You know – “You never know what you’re gonna get.”)

In my case, I got a recipe with a list of ingredients that didn’t match the instructions, like: “6 eggs, 4 egg yolks, 2 eggs.” After a careful read through of the instructions, I learned the ingredient list  really should have been simply 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks. Big difference!

The recipe instructions weren’t much better – really remarkable that I figured out the whole egg thing. It told me to cook the chocolate mixture, but not for how long or at what temperature or to what consistency. I had to rely on my old faithful 1969 Betty Crocker cookbook to save the day.

I didn’t find the same recipe, but I did learn that I needed to bring my mixture to a boil for a few minutes, stirring constantly, until it reached a thick pudding-like consistency.

I also learned that making a chocolate pie is incredibly labor-intensive, particularly if you make a meringue at the same time. Both require constant stirring and monitoring. Best to do this project with two people. I didn’t, which is why the only in-process photo I have of the whole experience is this:

The meringue was as wonderful as I’d hoped it would be! Light, fluffy and beautiful. I once again turned to Betty Crocker to learn how to make it to a wonderful golden brown.

Isn’t this the prettiest pie you’ve ever seen?

And, knowing The Boy as we all do, does it surprise anyone to learn that while stirring chocolate and beating a meringue, I also had to make this?

Ah, the burdens that come with the Proper Care and Feeding of All Things Boy. {I’ll admit it. I love nearly every minute of it!!}

So, while the Not-Anywhere-Near-A-Perfect-Recipe-For-A-Perfect-Pie experience was three parts investigation, one part recipe and two parts manic activity, it did produce a pretty tasty pie. Or so it seems, anyway:

The meringue recipe’s a keeper, but we’re going to try out other chocolate fillings. Perhaps my good friend and cooking co-conspirator, Stacie, will be kind enough to share her mother’s recipe for skillet chocolate pie. She says it’s the best, but as I’ve never had it, she may be spinning a tale.

And that, is another cookbook done for goal #88!

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{Editing slightly to add that, should there be enough interest, I’ll do an entire post dedicated purely to making the Perfect Meringue.}