Lemon Meringue Pie Dip

A friend of ours celebrated a birthday recently, and I was looking for something easy to bring.  Something that shared well, and something that wouldn't over-shadow the cake his wife bought him.  A dip seemed like the perfect option.  This dip, lemon meringue pie with pie crust dippers:

The lemon flavor is bright and citrusy and collides perfectly with the sweet toasted meringue top.  I served this with homemade pie crust dippers, but store bought pie crusts cut to size, vanilla wafers, or graham crackers would dip perfectly, too.

Ingredients
Lemon layer
Zest from 3-4 lemons (about 2 tablespoon)
4 eggs plus 2 egg yolk
2/3 cup lemon juice (from 6 small lemons)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Italian Meringue
3 large egg whites, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Lemon layer
1. Zest the lemon into a small bowl. Whisk the eggs together with the zest.

2. Heat the lemon juice in a small nonreactive saucepan until simmering but not boiling. While whisking continuously, slowly add the lemon juice to the eggs in a slow but steady stream.

3. Add the mixture back to the saucepan and heat over medium low until the mixture registered 160 degrees on a digital or candy thermometer, about 3 minutes. The spatula should leave a small trail across the bottom of the pan that fills in on itself a little quickly, but not too fast.

4. Immediately remove from heat, stir in sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, and a pinch salt.

5. Strain the mixture through a very fine wire mesh sieve. Place into your serving dish of choice (I used a small 7"x11" glass pyrex).  Set aside.

Italian Meringue

6.  Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Beat with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form.  Beat in salt.  While this is going, start the sugar syrup.  Don't let the eggs over mix, or the eggs will start to separate and become grainy.  If you notice soft peaks before your sugar syrup is ready, reduce speed to low, but keep stirring.

7.  In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup of water.  Heat over medium-low until the sugar dissolves.  Increase heat to medium-high and boil without stirring until a candy thermometer reads 238 degrees.

8.  With the mixer running on medium, slowly pour the syrup down the bowl of the stand mixer and beat until the meringue yields stiff peaks and is glossy.  Continue beating on low until cool.

9.  Layer the meringue over the lemon layer.  You can spread it evenly with an offset spatula then make swirls, or you can pipe with a piping bag and a star attachment for a more decorative look.

10. Right before serving, preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Toast meringue for 4-5 minutes until the top is lightly golden.  You could also broil for a few minutes or use a kitchen torch.

I served this with home made pie crust dippers.  I followed Smitten Kitchen's All Butter, Really Flaky Pie Dough recipe.  After I rolled out the dough I melted a tablespoon of butter and brushed it over the dough and sprinkled with sugar.  Then, I used a pastry cutter to make triangles, but you could use cookie cutters to make cute shapes, too.  I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper and baked at 375 degrees for 17 minutes, until the edges started to slightly brown.  Cooled on a baking rack and dipped and these were extraordinary!

Inspired from Something Swanky
Adaptation ideas taken from SYHO and I Bake It, You Eat It
Meringue recipe slightly adapted from Bon Appetit

Fudge Puddle Cookies (gluten free!)

Difficulty: easy
Time consuming: prep 20 minutes, bake 10 minutes


When my husband and I drove home from Florida, we spent an awesome long weekend with my Aunt Kathy in Atlanta which included meeting up with a friend for lunch (hey, Rach!), going to the aquarium, and hanging out. About an hour into our drive home, we got a text from her saying that my wonderful husband left his favorite sneakers at her house and that she'd mail them back to us. She's awesome. As a thank you, I mailed her a care package of desserts including these cookies:

I call these fudge puddle cookies because I can't think of any other way to describe the intense chocolatey flavor of these treats. The cookie gets a lightly crisp exterior, like the delicate skin on the top of the best brownies, and the middles are chewy, dense, and fudge-y. The soft balls of dough melt into thin puddles packed full of delectable dark chocolate. And as a perk, these cookies are gluten free!! Milk was made for these cookies, so have a glass nearby!

Fudge Puddle Cookies

Makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups bitter or semisweet chocolate chips, divided
3 large egg whites, room temperature
2 3/4 cups powdered sugar, divided
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper or spray with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a small, microwave safe bowl, melt 1 cup of chocolate chips (microwave for 30 seconds on 50% power, stir, and repeat until smooth. Do not over heat or the chocolate will seize and be ruined). Set aside to cool slightly.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together 1 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, all the cocoa powder, the cornstarch, and the salt. Set aside.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the 3 egg whites to soft peaks. Turn off mixer and add 1 cup of powdered sugar. Resume mixing until the mixture resembles marshmallow fluff and has soft peaks.

5. Add the flour mixture to the egg white mixture, mixing until incorporated and scraping down the sides and bottom as necessary. Mix in 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

6. Place 1/2 cup of powdered sugar in a small bowl. Using a tablespoon size cookie scoop, drop scoops of dough into the sugar (the dough will be extremely soft but will hold its shape well). Coat evenly in sugar (shaking off excess) and place on baking sheet, leaving about an inch or so between each cookie.

7. Bake for 10 minutes. The tops will look cracked and the chocolate peaking through in between will look molten and under baked (it's not). Remove from oven, let cool on trays for 10 minutes (this helps make them chewy), then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Eat with a glass of milk.

Adapted from Picklee

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Difficult: Not terribly
Time Consuming: It has 3 components, which I made over 2 days, but nothing was individually too timely.

I don't know what exactly has me in a citrus-y, fruity dessert kick, but I can't say I'm complaining.  A few weeks ago, it was lemon raspberry sugar cookies.  This week it's these lemon meringue cupcakes.  This particular batch of cupcakes found their way to our church's fish fry and from what I hear, were gobbled up pretty quickly.

The base of this dessert is a sweet and citrusy lemon cupcake.  The batter came together beautifully and very effortlessly in my stand mixer.  The aroma from the lemon was intoxicating and it took every ounce of strength not to lick the bowl.

I filled the cupcakes with lemon curd I made the day before.  It's from the book Baking: Illustrated by the folks at America's Test Kitchen, so you know it has to be good.  And aside from tempering the eggs, which would be easier with a third arm, the tangy and sweet filling came together easily and quickly.  Although I have seen recipes for 10 minute microwave lemon curd, so if anyone has tried those, I'd love to hear how they turned out.

The cupcakes are topped with a 7 minute frosting.  I don't know why it's called that, because mine definitely took more than 7 minutes to prepare.  I was able to prep my cupcakes for assembly and do some dishes while it was whipping away in the mixer.  But nonetheless, the meringue-like frosting is the perfect sweet and creamy compliment to all the bright lemony flavors bursting from the cupcake.  And if you've got a kitchen torch, it torches great, giving it that finished look of a meringue pie.  This can probably be accomplished in broiler, but you'd have to watch it like a hawk so it doesn't burn.

 

The recipe for the frosting made way too much for me, but that probably has more to do with how I frosted the cupcakes than the recipe itself.  I added a few tablespoons of cocoa powder (about 2 tablespoons to just under half the frosting) and a handful (or two, or three) of chocolate chips and mixed until combined.  Then I baked at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, and let cool in the oven for 1 hour and ended up with meringue cookies.  They aren't the exact same, but it was better than wasting all that sugar.  For a better meringue cookie recipe, check out Bakerella.

The Recipe

yields 26 cupcakes

Ingredients

Lemon Cupcake
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups white sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3 tablespoons of lemon zest (from about 3-4 small lemons)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of buttermilk (or measure 1 tablespoon of lemon juice into a 1 cup glass measuring cup, then top to the 1 cup line with milk, mix, and let sit for 5 minutes)

Filling
2 cups of prepared lemon curd (1 recipe's worth)

Frosting
 1 1/2 cups white sugar, + 2 tablespoons white sugar
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons corn syrup
6 large egg whites (eggs separate better from yolks when cool, but whip better for meringue at room temperature)


Directions

Make the Cake
1.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line cupcake pan with paper liners, set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing in between each addition.  Add the lemon zest and vanilla and mix.  Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl as needed.

3.  Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the stand mixer and mix.  Then add the lemon juice add 1/2 the buttermilk, mix.  Then add the second 1/3 of the flour mixture, mix.  Then the second 1/2 of the buttermilk, mix.  End by mixing in the final 1/3 of flour mixture until just combined.

4.  Divide the batter between the muffin cups, filling each around 2/3 of the way full.  Be careful not to over fill.  Bake for 22-25 minutes, until the tops of the cake spring back lightly when touched and a toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs (or completely clean).  Cool in pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the Frosting
5.  Make sure you have a working, accurate candy thermometer.  Test this out by boiling water and checking the temperature.  Water boils at 212 degrees, so take note of your temperature and make adjustments in the coming steps as necessary (e.g., if it boils at 202 degrees, then subtract 10 from the temperature)

6.  Combine water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and corn syrup in a small saucepan.  Cook over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.  With the heat around medium, cook until the sugar reaches 230 degrees on a candy thermometer.

7.  While the sugar is cooking, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks in a stand mixer.  With the mixer running on low, slowly add the 2 tablespoons of sugar.  Mix to combine.

8.  Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low.  When the cooked sugar reaches 230 degrees (aka softball stage), slowly (and carefully!) pour the syrup in a steady stream down the side of the bowl.  When all of the syrup has been added, increase the mixer speed to high and whisk.  Whisk until you have stiff (but not dry) peaks, and the frosting is cool (check by touching the bottom of the mixing bowl).  [Mine cooled, but was never "cool," it got to "just slightly warm" when I got tired of it mixing].

Assemble the Cupcakes
9.  Core the cupcakes.  Set aside the tops if you want to plop them back in after you fill.  Add 1-2 teaspoons of lemon curd to the cupcakes (and top with cupcake cores if you want).

10.  Pipe the meringue frosting on the cupcakes.  I used a large Wilton star tip.  Torch the top of the cupcakes with a butane kitchen torch.

Eat and enjoy!!

Mostly from Martha Stewart.