In the song, Be Our Guest, from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, there’s a verse that goes like:

Beef ragout, cheese souffle
Pie and pudding “en flambe”
We’ll prepare and serve with flair a culinary cabaret

This past week, I had a Beauty and the Beast-themed dinner with some friends and was asked to make a dessert o fit with the theme–specifically, lemon meringue pie and crème brûlée, two things that can be torched. I decided to use the recipe for the lemon meringue pie from Stella Parks’ Bravetart and a hybrid of the recipes for crème brûlée from NYT Recipes and Preppy Kitchen. I won’t talk much about the second dessert since I had made it before.

Pie Crust + Lemon Filling

From my experience with pies last week, I was feeling pretty confident about this one, or at least in pie crust making. To my surprise, I did notice that this dough was a bit drier. I realized that in hindsight that it would have been good to add more water when I realized that my dough was not coming together in one cohesive ball as quickly or smoothly as it did previously. I did notice that it was harder to roll out the dough as well too, it was less supple due to the lack of moisture. I actually ended up overbaking my first crust as a result, where it browned too quickly and was too crumbly where the crust edges broke off. The second time I made it, I tried to be more mindful and spritz water where I could, to patch the cracks, which seemed to help a bit. That crust was not as pretty as the ones I made last week but it was better than the first. That became my pie shell for this pie.

The lemon custard came together without much trouble. I also discovered the usefulness of having a citrus juicer, which made the process of juicing 8 oz worth of lemons a lot faster.

Meringue

The more stressful part came when I had to make the Swiss meringue. In the times I used this specific meringue recipe in the past, I had a 50% success rate, which isn’t great. I could not figure out why. I ended up cross-referencing Stella’s recipe (which could be found on Serious Eats here) with the one found on Sally’s Baking Addiction. I cooked the egg whites with the sugar for much longer this time until it reached a stable temperature of at least ~165F (or somewhere in between 160-175F). In the past, I would stir and scrape until it read 175F on the digital thermometer but I realized that the temperature of meringue is pretty unstable. After scraping the mixture until it was “thin and foamy”, I put on the highest speed on the mixer and whipped it. To my surprise, it worked and I stopped as soon as a saw stiff peaks. This eventually led me down the rabbit hole of what exactly the different types of meringue are (with the help of this website and this website).

Meringue is, scientifically, a type of stable foam. Egg whites contain 10% protein, which has its hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts. As egg whites are whisked or have an acidic component like cream of tartar, those proteins get denatured. As parts of the protein are exposed, the hydrophobic parts band around the bubbles to avoid water. This partnership with air bubbles is further strengthened and stabilized with the addition of sugar to help the hydrophilic parts keep the bubbles protected, allowing the foam to grow higher and higher. A stroke of fat like from egg yolks or oil would outcompete the hydrophobic parts of the protein to interact with the bubbles and even break them. Something like this would lead to a meringue being unable to reach to the stiff peak stage (which has happened to me before). Luckily, I had no hiccups when assembling this pie together.

I had a bit of fun decorating the pie and spreading meringue over the cooled lemon custard. It was fun using the fork to “swoop” and create small little peaks on the pie. After baking, I set it in the fridge to chill.

Overall, it was a nice time. Ironically, I didn’t need a torch burner to eat either of the desserts. I did notice that the meringue seemed to slide around a bit on the pie as I was trying to cut it, which made it hard to get a nice clean slice where one of the three (crust, lemon filling, meringue) didn’t separate from the rest. Nevertheless, it turned out pretty well. The crust was a little crumbly and overbaked but still had nice taste. Eating the lemon pie reminded me of drinking lemonade from Hot Dog On a Stick. I liked it but I’m not too sure if I will try this again.

P.S. Using a 4 cup to 8 egg yolks ratio for heavy cream seems to be better for creme brûlée. Props for checking that the broiler option works and that I remembered to skim the foam off the top of the ramekins before baking.