Meringue Pie

Learning to bake homemade pies is not exactly easy, but with a little time and practice you could be making perfect pies. Of course, baking does take a bit of skill but once you learn the basics, you're on the way to baking pies like your Grandma.

One of the essentials and the most difficult part is turning out a good pie crust. The key to a good crust in one word is "cold". All of the ingredients must be cold and the water you should use is ice water. You must also roll out the dough on a cold surface. Use pastry or cake flour for a flakier crust. A final tip on making pie crust dough is to handle the dough as little as possible. You want the shortening you are using to stay in clumps because the fat between layers of flour makes the piecrust flaky.

If you want to make a lemon meringue pie, you'll need to consider a few points about making a good meringue. Meringue is made from whipped egg whites and sugar. Whipping egg whites is what makes them so beautifully puffy and billowy. Adding the sugar at just the right time and in the right amount will keep the egg whites from collapsing while making the meringue sweet.

One important thing to remember when making a good meringue is to have everything impeccably clean and free of fat. Resist using plastic bowls since they may harbor fat residues. Be careful about getting even the slightest spec of egg yolk into the egg whites. Older egg whites make higher peaks and colder eggs separate more easily. The last tip in making good meringue is to keep beating the egg whites, don't stop once you've started whipping them.