Tennessee Williams Lemon Icebox Pie

[Katie Meadow]

I have a so-so recipe for this pie and I am looking to improve it for a birthday dinner party. Anyone know this one? My recipe uses a crust of crushed vanilla wafers and salted butter (!) which I have changed to a basic graham cracker crust. The filling is simple: lemon juice, condensed milk and one egg yolk; then a meringue on top. It bakes til the meringue is browned, like 20 minutes, then it cools, then into the fridge it goes til very cold. The lemon layer is quite tart, which I like, but the resulting pie isn't very dependable structurally, and sometimes it's better than other times. It usually tastes far better than it looks.

Maybe the meringue part needs improvement? That's 6 egg whites, 1/2 tsp cr of tartar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extr and 3/4 c sugar beaten to stiff peaks. I'm not much of a baker so my meringue experience is very limited. Any suggestions or recipes out there? The rest of the menu is moderately southern and I definitely want a lemony dessert. These are old old friends who have had my OTHER lemony desserts many times.

Oh, since the pie is supposed to be chilled very well, would it suffer if I made it the night before?

[chefpeon]

What part of the pie is not structurally dependable? I assume you are talking about the meringue.

Does it weep? Generally meringue will weep over time.....that's just what it does.

What I would do is bake the pie the day before and not put the meringue on it.

Put the meringue on it at the very last minute and pop it in the oven to brown.

OR

you can heat your egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar over a double boiler til they are

very hot, then whip the meringue, spread it on the pie, and brown it with a propane torch.

That's how I do it.

[Katie Meadow]

That's a good idea. If memory serves it did weep, so perhaps baking the meringue after refrigerating instead of before refrigerating would help. Strictly speaking that would really make it not an icebox pie and it would not be eaten cold. I did a little research and it sounds to me like this pie is really a lemon mutation of a key lime pie w/meringue, which is baked twice as you suggest. Refrigerating in between trips to the oven would be unnecessary but convenient, no? It makes sense that on becoming an icebox pie the pastry crust was dropped in favor of a crumb crust. When I googled Lemon Icebox Pie very few recipes included a meringue topping, so I think my Tennessee Williams Lemon Icebox Pie may be of quirky origin. Maybe he invented it during an August heat wave, when you want your head in the fridge along with your pie. Enough bourbon and who cares if your pie is weeping--you're probably weeping too.

[SusanGiff]

I have a so-so recipe for this pie and I am looking to improve it for a birthday dinner party. Anyone know this one? My recipe uses a crust of crushed vanilla wafers and salted butter (!) which I have changed to a basic graham cracker crust. The filling is simple: lemon juice, condensed milk and one egg yolk; then a meringue on top. It bakes til the meringue is browned, like 20 minutes, then it cools, then into the fridge it goes til very cold. The lemon layer is quite tart, which I like, but the resulting pie isn't very dependable structurally, and sometimes it's better than other times. It usually tastes far better than it looks.

Maybe the meringue part needs improvement? That's 6 egg whites, 1/2 tsp cr of tartar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extr and 3/4 c sugar beaten to stiff peaks. I'm not much of a baker so my meringue experience is very limited. Any suggestions or recipes out there? The rest of the menu is moderately southern and I definitely want a lemony dessert. These are old old friends who have had my OTHER lemony desserts many times.

Oh, since the pie is supposed to be chilled very well, would it suffer if I made it the night before?

←

I've actually served the pie frozen after having it that way at a soul food restaurant in Memphis--it's amazing, and not quite as gummy as when it's just refrigerated. Unfortunately, I've got a couple of web recipes in my folder and can't remember which one worked best, but I'm pretty sure it's: this. I may even have frozen the meringue and traded taste for authenticity. Of some kind.

[Katie Meadow]

Thanks Susan, that recipe uses pretty much the same technique as mine, altho the filling has more egg yolk and the meringue less egg white and less sugar. I can't remember exactly how mine was (I haven't made it for years) but the meringue must be awfully high and corrosively sweet with 6 egg whites and 3/4 c sugar! I think I will try yours. It turns out that my husband's memory of this pie isn't exactly like mine (what else is new?) and he now wants lemon buttermilk sorbet and cocoa nib brownies for his birthday dinner. That's good, since I can make brownies in my sleep and he's Mr. Sorbet. Frankly I'm relieved: I was having a hard time imagining how sparkler candles would fare stuck into a meringue. Unless the meringue turned into cement, but then...

Now that I am fixated on this icebox pie clearly it will happen in the not too distant future.

[SusanGiff]

Well, you've got to love a man who gets so specific about his birthday requirements. Also one who cares enough about dessert to specify. Off topic, but do you have a recipe for brownies with cocoa nibs? They sound good.

[Katie Meadow]

For basic brownies I am utterly committed to the Joy of Cooking original recipe for Brownies Cockaigne. I follow the technique religiously and go with a 9 x 13 pan as suggested for "chewy and moist." BUT I do make some alterations. I don't like anything very sweet, so I always cut back on the sugar by about 1/3 cup. Sometimes I add a couple Tbsps espresso powder to the chocolate-butter before it cools (brownies for homework assistance!) I do not find that using high quality chocolate to replace the bakers chocolate is an advantage, but I do chop up a modest amount of good quality dark chocolate and add it when I add the chopped nuts at the end; sometimes I go with flavored chocolate, like Valrhona orange or a dark mint.

The Cocoa Nib Brownies came about when my daughter (college student who can't boil water) brought me some Sharffenberger nibs as a gift. Needless to say she had no idea what they were. And I had no idea what to do with them, so we threw in a handful along with the nuts. There was no espresso or additional chocolate in that batch, so it was a good test. The result was excellent, though no one could have guessed what was in the brownies.

There's a great thread of food quotes on eG and someone is quoted as saying "Mo' buttah, mo' bettah." When it comes to chocolate my motto is "Mo bittah, mo' bettah."

[racheld]

The old, tried-and-true Southern recipe is a three-and-three combo: three yolks, then use the whites for the meringue. The only time I ever use the one-yolk method is what I will make this weekend, for a cheesecake topping.

The one-yolk type doesn't set up well enough to cut, I would imagine, without all that chemical reaction with the extra yolks to solidify it---it just spoons out in nice fluffy spoonfuls, to top a cheesecake, pouf alongside a slice of buttery poundcake, or in a nice cut-glass compote beside a tray of fruit.

I just can't imagine that just enough oven-time to brown meringue would do any actual baking of the filling itself, and one yolk just wouldn't do the trick for a pie.

And with the three-yolk, it's done its own thing, and you can use your torch for the meringue, no oven involved.

[Kouign Aman]

Yes, but with three yolks, you can get a very 'eggy' tasting pie filling. Its always a balancing act when making a key lime pie too. The sour brings out the sulfur or something.

[racheld]

I've never, ever noticed either too-eggy custard (as is the case in creme anglaise and other cooked custardy things, nor sulphurous taste or aroma---must be all that Eagle Brand. I think you could bury durian in enough of that stuff

[Rebecca263]

I smell a cook off!

[Katie Meadow]

Would it help if I supplied the recipe? I have no idea where/what publication it came from. It has a dubious and perhaps alarming quote attributed to Tennessee Williams, which is that the result of making this pie "is good enough to slap your Mama." Perhaps she's the one who was doing the weeping if her own son slapped her.

Here it is: after filling the pie shell with the crumb crust, mix 1/2 c lemon juice, 1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk (no help as to size of can and I assume this is sweetened) and 1 egg yolk. Pour that into the pie plate. In another bowl beat 6 egg whites, 1/2 tsp crm of tartar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extr and 3/4 c sugar until stiff white peaks form. Pour over lemon mix and top w/fresh grated lemon zest. Bake in the oven "at moderate heat" (does that mean approx 350 to you?) just long enough for meringue to brown, about 20 minutes. Cool to room temp, put in fridge til "ice-cold."

I made this twice (not in the last few years, though), most likely following the recipe, since I don't bake a lot. Needless to say I don't carry a torch. My memory is that it was good, but not exactly right. I do have a vested interest in the filling being tart and not eggy. I try to avoid using a lot of egg yolk. According to some of the comments above, the meringue topping in this recipe has an awful lot of egg white and an imprudent amount of sugar. I would be happy to reduce the suger as well.

I am relatively new to eG and don't fully grasp the cook-off thing. How does that work?