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| Shaker Lemon Pie via Cmadler / Wikipedia |
Over the last month or so, I've put my energy towards finally making a consistent, decent pie crust. Turns out, it's not all that difficult. It's not yet the perfect pie crust, but it is consistent and enjoyable.
I practiced making pastry by making a Shaker lemon pie (well, two at a time, actually). And as I mixed dough and prepped the filling, I realized that this is a pie that sums up my philosophy of food in one crazy intense dish.
I've made this pie for over twenty years, off and on. I think I first read the recipe in Esquire magazine (although I could be completely mistaken--it has been a lot of years, after all). Most of the time I cheated and bought premade pie crusts, as I regularly made the most inedible crusts on the planet. I've always cooked, but baking has been one of the forgotten skills around me. After getting married, I discovered that my Significant Other (the writer Paula Johanson) loved to bake cookies and cakes and the like, making my efforts at best redundant. I still occasionally made an Impossible Pie from a recipe out of the United Church Ladies Auxiliary cookbook produced by our local church. That's a pie where you mix all the ingredients in one bowl, and as it bakes it separates into shell, filling, and topping as if by magic. It kinda worked when I did it, and as it had coconut and sugar, was always quite snackable, but not what you'd call serious baking. And as Paula got into breads and rolls, I just backed away from baking and left the territory to her.
But while there was a plethora of baking powder biscuits, breads, and cakes, pie was one of those things that didn't get made very often. Until I found the recipe in Esquire.
The filling is simple: I've quoted it from memory many times.
- 2 large lemons (with the ends cut off and the pith and seeds removed)
- 2 cups 9500 ml) of sugar
- 4 eggs
