Silky smooth and sweet-tart, this easy Lemon Pie is the perfect spring and summer dessert (or anytime you want to pretend it’s summery!). The lemon custard is made with only 3 ingredients, bakes in less than 20 minutes, and can be made ahead of time for easy entertaining.
Brand new month… brand new pie for our 2018 Pie of the Month series!
(I really don’t know who I am anymore, getting all these pie recipes out at the beginning of the month. I was usually down to the wire for my bundt cakes, sharing on the last day or two of each month!)
We’re inching closer to my favorite kind of pie: fruit pies! We started with lots of no-bake pies to get us through the winter produce dearth (coconut cream pie, mint chocolate chip pie, Nutella pie) .
We’re not quite up to summer berry pies yet. But this month is a lemon pie, made with fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. Getting closer!
When I started planning out my year-long series of pies, April seemed like the perfect month for lemon pie. Bright, sunshiney, springy – everything you think of when it comes to both April in the mid-Atlantic and lemon.
Except instead… we’re stuck in perpetual winter. On Monday, it snowed and sleeted. This weekend: more snow is predicted. I probably should have made something more in line with this chocolate bourbon pecan pie if I wanted to be “weather appropriate.” Sigh.
Nevertheless, let’s pretend it’s spring with this creamy, dreamy lemon pie. Maybe it actually *is* spring where you live! (If so, say hello to the sunshine on behalf of us mid-Atlantic dwellers.)
That’s right – only three ingredients! This lemon pie has the same base as a key lime pie: egg yolks and condensed milk, but lots of lemon (both juice and zest) instead of key lime juice. And that’s it!
Three ingredients, plus a homemade graham cracker pie crust and whipped cream for topping. Super duper easy!
The filling for this pie is really more like a custard or a cream pie – it’s soft, creamy, and oh-so-delicious. But unlike a typical custard which you cook separately on the stovetop, this is a dump-and-bake sort of a pie.
Whisk together the condensed milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, and egg yolks and pour it into the pie crust. Then bake – no tempering egg yolks into hot milk and whisking on the stove.
How does this work? The answer, of course, is all in my favorite subject… kitchen chemistry!
Kitchen Chemistry
Lemons are full of citric acid, which not only provides the classic tart lemon flavor, but also is the key to setting the custard in this pie. The acid reacts with the casein proteins in the milk and the lipoproteins in the egg yolks which denature as they begin to cook in the oven, creating a stable structure and resulting in the smooth custardy texture.
There are dozens of different ratios for the egg yolk to condensed milk to lemon juice out there. I love the sweet-tart taste of lemon desserts, so I wanted to play up the tart side of the lemon, adding extra lemon juice (and some extra egg yolk) to compensate for the extreme sweetness of the condensed milk.
Don’t worry, it’s not too tart — it’s like a refreshing glass of lemonade on a hot summer day. (Hot summer day? I don’t even remember what that is anymore.)
I have one request for this pie: use fresh lemon juice. I’m all about keeping a bottle of lemon juice in the fridge for cooking or adding a little bit here or there, but when it comes to this pie: fresh is best.
Bottled lemon juice lacks the citrusy pop of the fresh stuff, meaning the resulting pie won’t taste as bright and may not set as well in the oven. Squeezing all those lemons is well worth the effort.
I’m going to be honest here: this is one of my favorite desserts I’ve ever made, and that’s saying a lot, because obviously, I make a lot of desserts. But there was just something about this lemon pie that I couldn’t stop eating.
The silky smooth texture. The prominent lemon flavor. The crispy graham cracker crust. The pile of whipped cream and raspberries on top. All of it.
Let’s say you’ve already mad this 5 or 6 times (like me) and want to try switching things up a little. Here are a few ideas to get you started!
Silky smooth and sweet-tart, this easy lemon pie is the perfect spring and summer dessert (or anytime you want to pretend it’s summery!).
Pie can be made ahead of time. After baking, cool at room temperature, then loosely wrap with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or cover tightly with a layer of plastic wrap and aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
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