Lemon Meringue Pie Bites

Last week Annika was Star of the Week in her classroom...and Thursday was her day to share her favorite treat with her class.  Now, Annika had asked for a lemon meringue pie and I immediately nixed that idea (I mean...how messy is that?  That has disaster written all over it!).  We'd decided on some plain old chocolate chip cookies.  Until I came upon Skip to My Lou's post about mini lemon meringue pies!  Jackpot! Score!

So here they are....

Lemon Meringue Pie Bites!

oooooo....yummy meringue.....with a sweet-tart lemony filling.  Just yummy!

Grandma's Super Dooper Lemon Meringue Pie:

1 lemon, zest and juice (keep both)
3 eggs, separated (keep both parts)

7 Tb cornstarch
1/2 cup cold water

1-1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 cup water

1Tb butter

Pie Crust (pre-baked; either one 9" or lots of minis (I believe my pie dough recipe gave me over 36 mini pie crusts)

Mix 1/2 cup of COLD water with the cornstarch.  In a sauce pan boil the 1-1/2 cup of water with sugar.  Add cornstarch mixture and stir until thick.  Cook this mixture ONE minute per recipe to make sure all the starch is fully converted.

Remove from heat and temper the slightly beaten egg yolks with the cornstarch-sugar mixture (add a little bit of the hot mixture to the yolks and stir.  Keep adding the hot mixture and stirring the yolks until there is no longer any danger of cooking the egg yolk (no scrambled eggs!)).  Cook ONE minute after ingredients are fully mixed.

Remove from heat and add butter, grated lemon zest and lemon juice.  Mix well.

Pour into pre-baked 9" pie shell and let cool.
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Meringue Topping (using Beth's Method):

3 egg whites (from above)
6 Tb sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tb meringue powder (can be omitted)

Beat egg whites until stiff.  Add sugar, vanilla and meringue powder.  Continue beating until meringue stands up in firm peaks.  Spread meringue over pie (it's best if you can "attach" the meringue to the crust).  Sprinkle sugar over the top (will make it easier to cut once finished and it gives it a nice brown color too).

Bake at 300F for 30-45 minutes (to ensure the meringue is cooked all the way through).
Cool in oven with the door open.

*My MIL and SIL both make at least a double recipe of the meringue per pie.  They end up with pies that are a mile high with meringue.  Yum!

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For the pie bites I baked the pie crusts in MINI muffin tins (cutting a 2" circle cookie cutter to cut the pie dough and then gently pressing the circle of pie dough into the mini muffin tin cups).  I baked my mini pie crusts between 6-8 minutes at 350F (until they were lightly browned).

I used a small tiny ice cream scoop (or you could use a regular ol' spoon) to fill each of the pie crusts with the lemon filling.  Easy!  I did dig deep into my pantry and found a pastry bag and tips to pipe the meringue on top of each of the mini pie bites.  I'm pretty sure this wasn't necessary but it made the pies look cuter (and it wasn't as messy!).  I baked the mini pies in the oven just as I would for a normal size pie.
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PERFECTO!  

I think I like these lemon meringue pie bites better than the full-size version.  Plus...they're MINIS!  How can you not like a mini????