Lemon Cake Pie
Oh, heavens to Betsy, this is some good pie! Lemon cake pie has a sweet lemon curd on the bottom, with a cake-like meringue on top. If you look closely at the photo above you can see a thin line of the cake layer. It’s light and sweet–perfect for Spring. I found this recipe in an old cookbook I bought at an antique shop in the Catskill Mountains. It’s written by a former actress, Mary Hosford. In it she details her family’s most cherished recipes and recounts the stories that are connected to them. It was a simpler life back then. I am certain, when I was in my twenties, that I would not have appreciated the simplicity of those “olden times”, but now that I’m a mom nearing my 40s I find myself using expressions like “heavens to Betsy”.
Lemon cake pie really is delicious and pretty easy to make. Here’s how I did it. First I processed together the sugar and lemon zest. According to the famed pastry chef Sherry Yard, this brings out the oil in the lemon zest resulting in a more lemony taste.
Then in a large bowl, I mixed the sugar/zest mixture with the melted butter . I added the flour, salt, and lemon juice. I whisked two egg yolks with milk and stirred that into my lemony mixture also. Finally, in a separate bowl I beat two egg whites to the soft peak stage, and folded it into my mixture.
I poured the filling into my pie shell (I used this pie pastry recipe- just cut the recipe in half), and baked it in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes.
Allow the pie to cool completely before slicing it up.
