Lemon Meringue Pie With Cookie Crumb Crust
Lemon pie is a staple in the south, especially in the hotter months. Often referred to as “lemon icebox pie”, it is commonly kept in the fridge and served cold as a refreshing ending to any meal. Of course you can purchase a lemon meringue pie at any grocery store and most fast food chains, but once you’ve had it made from scratch all store bought versions will pale in comparison.
As a girl, this was always my favorite (aside from my grandmother’s cherry cheese pie!). I just love the taste of lemon, its like a little bit of sunshine to your taste buds!
This is a surprisingly simple pie to make so I’m also going to show you how to make a cookie crumb crust and a homemade meringue. I’ve gotten endless requests for a meringue recipe and tutorial so here ya go! Sorry it took me so long to get one up for you!
Feel free to use a store bought crust for this to streamline the process. Those who don’t care for meringue can leave the pie “topless” or add whipped topping in its place once your pie has been baked and cooled. 
For our crust you’ll need:
- 1 box vanilla wafers
- 3 Tablespoons sugar
- 6 Tablespoons margarine
This is a basic cookie crumb crust which is really suited to just about any pie. You can substitute graham cracker crumbs for the wafers and even crush up stale cookies as a substitute as well. Depending on the pie, you may even want to experiment with adding a teaspoon of cinnamon for more flavor 
. Have fun with it, there is no right or wrong way!
Crush half of the box of wafers (about forty of them). I used my food processor for this but you can put them in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin or whatever method you choose.
Running over them with the car might be fun, depending on the type of day you’re having. If you decide on that method, I’d double bag ‘em first ~winks and grins~. When automotive vehicles become involved in the baking process, you know you’re living a fun life!
Add sugar and stir well.
Until it looks like this.
Melt margarine and add to crumbs.
Mix that up well
Press that into your pan.
Take the remainder of your cookies and press them into the crust along the top of the sides like this.
Now is where you might want to use a pastry brush to brush down the crumbs which are in between the wafers. I don’t and I won’t. Have you ever noticed that we have an odd habit of trying to make our homemade pies and cakes look like they are store bought? Doesn’t this strike you as strange? Knowing homemade is a hundred times better than anything pre made in a store, I just let my homemade baked goods go on looking homemade. Trust me, its a good thing.
Now lets make our filling. You’ll need:
- eggs
- sweetened condensed milk (14 – 15 ounce can)
- lemon juice (You can use fresh or bottled)
We need to separate our whites from our yolks. They sell all manner of contraptions for doing this but I’m going to show you how to do it the old fashioned way, which means you’ll have one less one-use utensil in your drawer.
Tap egg gently on the side of the bowl to crack it.
Separate halves slowly
Hold the halves so that the yolk (dark yellow part) is in one, letting the white drip off into the bowl.
You don’t have to have every single smidgen of white off, there will still be a bit attached to your yolk and thats fine, too.
Gently pour the yolks back into the other half and the rest of the white will drip off, you may need to tilt it slightly. Be careful not to break the yolk as we are going to use these whites to make our meringue.
If you get any of the yolk mixed in with the white your meringue won’t work.
Place your yolks in a separate bowl from your whites.
We’ll use the yolks for our filling and the whites for the meringue.
Place two egg yolks in a bowl and add entire can of sweetened condensed milk.
I am using three whites in my merginue but only two yolks in my filling so you can save the other for another use or throw it away.
Add lemon juice. Mix well with electric mixer.
Pour into prepared crust.
To make our meringue we’ll need:
- Sugar
- 3 egg whites
Meringue is easy to make but there are a few things to avoid in order to be successful.
- All utensils and bowls used in making meringue should be clean and free of any oily residue. Washing them in a dishwasher or very hot water with a good rinse will ensure this.
- Eggs separate easily when cold but meringue rises higher when at room temperature. Therefore, you may want to separate your eggs and then allow them to sit for half an hour or so before making your meringue. Of course I didn’t do this…
- It is important, when spreading meringue on top of your dessert, that it touches all sides of the dish. This is often referred to “sealing” your dessert and will prevent the meringue from shrinking up and leaving the sides as the dish bakes.
- If you get any yolk at all in your meringue, it will not work. If separating eggs is something you’re not quite proficient at yet, you might want to crack eggs one at a time into a coffee cup and then pour it into your bowl once you are certain there is no yolk in the white. If you do get yolk into the white, use part of the egg shell to scoop it all out rather than your fingers. Your fingers will add oil to the whites and hinder their whipping as well as break the egg yolk up further, making it almost impossible to completely remove.
Place whites in mixing bowl.
Mix with an electric mixer on high. It will begin to look sudsy very shortly.
When it looks spongey and foamy, I add my sugar.
Pour in sugar and beat on high again…we are going to go for soft peaks and I’ll show you what I mean by that.
Your whites will stop looking foamy and begin to be smooth and shiny like this.
See that peak in the meringue right around six o’clock? When you lift up your beater and it forms a peak that the tip just barely falls down on, thats a soft peak. A stiff peak could be when your point remains standing straight up. Some meringue recipes say to beat until stiff peaks form but I find that your meringue spreads prettier if you place it atop your dessert at the soft peak stage. This is just my personal preference. If stiff peaks make you happy, party on!
Place on top of your pie.
Spread it out a bit. Make sure your meringue touches the sides in all places.
You might want to pretty it up a bit by running the back of a spoon over it.
Bake in a 325 degree oven for fifteen minuts, or until top is golden. Allow to cool completely before cutting. I like to refrigerate mine and serve it cold.
Voila! Homemade Lemon Meringue Pie.
This is so much more delicious than store bought!
Ingredients
- 1 box vanilla wafers (crust)
- 6 T margarine (crust)
- 3 T sugar (crust)
- 14-15 ounce can sweetened condensed milk (filling)
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh or bottled) (filling)
- 2 egg yolks (filling)
- 3 egg whites (Meringue)
- 1/4 C sugar (Meringue)
-
Instructions
- For crust, crush half of wafers (about 40). Stir in sugar. Add melted margarine and stir until well blended. Pat out into pie plate.
- For filling, Mix all ingredients with electric mixer until well blended. Pour into crust. Top with Meringue.
- For meringue, Whip egg whites until foamy. Add sugar. Continue beating on high speed until soft peaks form. Pour onto top of pie and spread to edges to seal well. Bake at 325 for fifteen minutes or until top is golden. Allow to cool completely and refrigerate before serving, if desired.
Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Pluginhttp://www.southernplate.com/2009/03/lemon-meringue-pie-with-cookie-crumb-crust.html
Ingredients
- 1 box vanilla wafers (crust)
- 6 T margarine (crust)
- 3 T sugar (crust)
- 14-15 ounce can sweetened condensed milk (filling)
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh or bottled) (filling)
- 2 egg yolks (filling)
- 3 egg whites (Meringue)
- 1/4 C sugar (Meringue)
Instructions
- For crust, crush half of wafers (about 40). Stir in sugar. Add melted margarine and stir until well blended. Pat out into pie plate.
- For filling, Mix all ingredients with electric mixer until well blended. Pour into crust. Top with Meringue.
- For meringue, Whip egg whites until foamy. Add sugar. Continue beating on high speed until soft peaks form. Pour onto top of pie and spread to edges to seal well. Bake at 325 for fifteen minutes or until top is golden. Allow to cool completely and refrigerate before serving, if desired.
Print This Recipe
Another great recipe to use this homemade meringue on: Homemade Banana Pudding, the first tutorial I ever did!
Gratefully,
Christy
Related posts:
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Mar 30 2009. Filed under Dessert, headline, Pie, Southern Classics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Oh…I forgot to mention in the post above that I also see nothing wrong with consuming Sweetened Condensed Milk right from the can (another one of my favorite things!)
How can we get a “copy” of this recipe without it being 3 or 4 page long? There is not a place that says “print this recipe”.
As far as printing, if there is not a “print button” I just copy and paste just the recipe into a blank document or a blank email and print from there.
Btw this looks yummy! I LOVE lemon anything!
so if you cook the pie filling for ten minutes first, do you need to let it cool down before adding the meringue?
Do you cook or bake the filling before putting the meringue on? If not, I have a concern regarding the eggs. 15 mins is not long enough to cook the filling. thanks
I make mine exactly according to my recipe and feel completely comfortable in the cooking time based on what I know of food safety, but I encourage you to modify it as you see fit for your own family
Gratefully,
Christy
this pie is what i have always called lemon icebox pie, and the lemon meringue is the cooked version. the jello brand lemon pudding (cooked version) makes a wonderful pie. it is almost as good as grandma’s home cooked pie. lemon pie has always been my favorite.
My husband made this pie over the weekend, it was great ! But when he cut the pie it had extra liquid ,not the filling itself. What did he do wrong to make this happen? The pie still tasted great so no big deal , I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas as to why this happened.
Hi Sabrina
I had the same problem so,I used juice from lemons,plus a Teaspoon of lemon zest.I’m not sure what caused the watery consistency when I used bottled juice but,the lemons worked for me & tasted better..hope this helps
I made two of these pies for our Good Friday get together at my Mother-in-laws. I made one with whipped cream and one with meringue and they were a big hit. As a fairly new addition to the family, (I’ve been married one year in January) it was heart warming to hear my Mimi (my husbands grandmother) say “you know, you really are a good cook”. I didn’t let her know how very easy these pies were, but thank you Christy for helping me make a good impression!
The pictures really helped!
[...] chess pie is one of my husband’s favorites! He loves lemon and that one is easier than a lemon meringue pie! I made Daddy’s Coconut Cake for Easter- half as cupcakes to take to the extended family [...]
We have made this pie for years. It does get juicy. That is normal for this recipe. However, I rather dig how the last few slices or gooey and yummy.
My mom has made this pie since I was VERY small…….which is to say well over 60 years !! We just called it Graham cracker pie, cause we always use a graham cracker crust. I’m going to try this cookie crust ! sounds yummy.
Let me know what you think of it after you make it Adeline, I hope you like it.
Lemon chess pie, taco salad (no meat) and homemade hotwings ~ it’s gonna be some tasty southern plate eating here tonight!!!
Yummy!!!
I make a version of this pie. I use sour orange juice instead of lemon juice. My friends & family love it. Sour oranges are what grows on an orange tree after the sweet orange tree that was grafted onto the sour orange rootstock freezes. Some people call it wild orange.
[...] Lemon Meringue Pie (Cookbook p.192) [...]
I would love to say thank you so much for this recipe.My husband eats Edwards Lemon Meringue Pie by himself 2 times a week this will save me about $12 a week.He said this is an exact match : ) God Bless, Carolyn
My family does not like meringue, so can I bake it without it and let cool and top with whipped creme ? And how low to back ?
I am from Alabama and would like to say that there is a HUGE difference between Lemon Ice Box Pie and Lemon Meringue Pie. This is for lemon ice box pie. Lemon icebox pie has sweetened condensed milk in the custard part and uses a graham cracker crust. Lemon meringue pie uses a regular crust and no sweetened condensed milk. I much prefer lemon meringue pie, but this is great as well. Lemon Meringue has a translucent look to the filling and isn’t as tart as the icebox pie.
Thanks Christy! I made this pie today. I had used sweetened condensed milk for lemon meringue previously and didn’t like the recipe I had used. But this ipe was excellent. I will certainly make it again!
I am so glad to hear that you liked it!!!
If you have a problem with your meringue weeping or being a little watery and not setting up high and light, you can add a teaspoon of baking powder when you start to beat the egg whites and then add a tsp. of baking soda and then add a tsp. of corn starch right at the end as it is forming stiff peaks. My mother has done this for years and her meringue never weeps. This is good for hot, humid areas where it’s a little harder to make meringue pies also. It doesn’t change the taste at all.
Correction on what I typed Add a tsp of baking powder at the start of beating and a tsp. of cornstarch at the end. No baking soda! I don’t know why I typed that…lol.
[...] Lemon Meringue Pie with Cookie Crumb Crust [...]
I would love to try this recipe, I just need to know if my family does not like meringue, should the filling still be cooked for 15 minutes? What if you want to use the mini graham cracker crust?
Finally my grandmother’s Lemon Ice Box pie recipe!!!! She never used Realemon but real lemons so she could use the lemon zest!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so glad you found it Cheryl!! I hope you get to try it soon and it is everything you remember!
I have been looking for this recipe for so long! I am putting together a family cookbook and my grandmother made this pie, but of course never wrote down the recipe. I was afraid it was gone forever. Thanks so much!
Christy, I made this for one of our family Christmas gatherings. It was a first for me making meringue as my mom or grandmother usually makes lemon meringue pie. I am pleased to say it went in less than 5 minutes! I was shocked at how easy the meringue was to make. I have always been intimidated by meringue. My husband has me making another one today just for him!
Help!!! I love this pie but I am having a liquid problem. Everything looks great until I cut into it. It oozes liquid after you cut it. It’s clear and very lemony. I love the taste, but because I would like to photograph a cut pie, the liquid kind of takes away from the photo . Can you provide any suggestions?
BTW – is it supposed to run? I have seen other recipes that add cornstarch. Should I do that? I love the flavor and don’t need to change that. I should mention I use Meyers Lemons and do add about a Tbs of zest. Any help would be appreciated.
Hey Felix!
The pie you see photographed here was made exactly by this recipe, as was the one photographed in my first book. The trick is to let it get gooood and cold before cutting. I hope this helps!
For the ppl needing to know that the lemon juice cooks the egg yolks, not the 15 minutes you put the pie into the oven. The reason for cooking it in the hot oven for 15 minutes is to make the meringue brown. Love this pie.
Yesterday was my daughters 11th birthday and she requested tacos and lemon ice box pie!! Fixing to go whip this baby up!! Thanks for simplicity, the other recipe I looked at required jello which I don’t have on hand.
And I accidentally put all 3 yolks in!!! Hope it’s ok…
Not able to copy recipe photos and only some content since you have a protected copyright to print or do electronically copy. Other sites I have gone to, Pinterest etc does not do that. Once it copied the whole page including the ads and wouldn’t let me delete them. I didn’t see the copyright until after going thru all of that since it was at the bottom of your page. Just not a friendly thing for your viewers since that is why they look at your site. You have some great
recipe and I appreciate the how to photos but not worth the hassle to get info for a recipe here.
Hey Judy!
I’m so sorry you don’t think me very friendly or neighborly. I spend 40+ hours a week on SouthernPlate but there are a lot of websites and facebook pages that copy and paste content into their site and place themselves as the author, of the stories, recipes, and photos. This has been really hurting the traffic of food bloggers and brought us to the point that we won’t be able to afford to offer these blogs to people if we don’t try to protect our content. While the site is free to you, it costs me over three times what my mortgage is per month to keep it going,so I rely on traffic coming to my site to help cover costs and when people steal my content, they also steal my traffic. Plus, it’s simply wrong.
All you have to do is click the “print recipe” button beneath each recipe.
It’s really very simple but easy to overlook
However, as I said, there are really simple options for printing the recipe. I promise I’m being neighborly, but as with most things, the bad guys make it harder for the good folks. If people continue to frequent the sites that steal content from food bloggers, eventually the well will run dry.
I appreciate you taking time to let me know of your disappointment and I hope I’ve explained it a little bit.
Have a blessed day!
Gratefully
Christy