Mile High Meringue Pie

Coconut Cream Pie

Hey everyone! I get a lot of compliments on my pies. Yep I do. And it makes me feel real good about making them. It gives me a lot of pride. So I want to share how to make a mile high meringue! As Ailene in a group I am in named it. lol

I also get "how did you do that" So I am going to tell you how to do this.

 Ready, here we go...

Get a 9in deep dish pie plate

Put your crust into it or this is how I make mine...

Approximately 1 cup of Crisco lard and 1 and 1 1/2 cup of self rising flour.

Cut flour into Crisco (I use a fork) until this looks like large crumbs.

Now run the cold water until it is nice and cold. Start adding water on the edge of the mixture and roll around with fork until all of the mixture forms a ball

Put a hand full of flour on counter and place ball of dough on top of it and put flour on top of dough ball...use a rolling pen to roll out...

You can eye the size of the rolled out dough by holding the pie plate above the dough you have rolled out and see if it is big enough. As soon as you think it is stop and fold the rolled dough back onto itself, so now it will look like half. Put your pie plate next to the fold and grab the fold and ease it just over the inside of the pie plate...now take the edge of the part you folded back and unfold it toward the rest of the pie plate til it is all covered.

Now, you need to finish out the edge of the crust. You can do this a lot of ways: you can pinch the crust along the rim of the pie plate with both sets of your forefinger and thumb. Or you can put your bent forefinger knuckle on one side of the rim and push the dough against it on the other side with your forefinger and thumb until you have went around the pie plate. Now trim off excess dough with a butter knife at the lowest point of outside edge of rim. Get a clean fork and poke holes all over crust bottom and up the sides and I turn the faucet on cold and wet my finger and wet the inside where the bottom meets the sides, like a circle, and then I trace the top edge of the crust that you pinched on top of edge with water.

This keeps the crust from shrinking up while cooking.

Place pie plate and crust in oven and bake at 350 until crust is light brown.

Remove from oven and let cool.

Now start your pudding of choice: of course this one is going to be coconut.

I do not use instant pudding for my pies: I use Cook n Serve puddings.

Follow the directions: 

Cook n Serve pudding takes time and constant stirring or it will scorch and taste bad.  

When pudding is done and has set off the heat for five minutes (having stirred it at least twice off the heat) pour it into your cooled crust. Set it aside to cool and set up. 

Now the fun part:

Get your mixer out and use a medium bowl.

You need 6 egg whites and 1 cup of sugar.

Blend your egg whites on high until they are fluffy and consumes most of the bowl.

(it takes awhile to get the egg whites to this point so be patient)

When you think the egg whites are finished turn your mixer down to medium speed.

Now...

Start adding the sugar a little at a time, just pour some in while it is turning and wait until it gets mixed in...then do it again...repeat this until the sugar is all gone...

(again, this will take awhile...so be patient!)

At this point you will need your oven on 350 degrees and lower your oven rack!

I use a soft plastic spatula for this step.

Get the cooled pie next to your bowl take the spatula and get a good amount of meringue on it and start on the side by the crust, all the way around the pie, now this will look like you left a hole in the center when you are done. So when you do this first circle of meringue you must meet the meringue with the crust...in other words when you make the first swipe of meringue take the spatula and smear it onto the edge of your finished crust. This smearing, if you will, prevents the meringue from shrinking away from the crust when you cook it.

Now you can fill in the middle with meringue, and start layering on the meringue in a circle like you did the first round, go as high as you have meringue...woohoo

Now take your lose coconut and start sprinkling it on the meringue as heavy as you want, I have kind of thrown it onto sides because it gets so big and has a lot of layering. But that will be personal preference. When your done put it in the preheated oven at 350 degrees.

Again this takes patience there really is no way to time this step because it is just browning meringue and all stoves are different. You will just need to stand watch til it is browned.

TA DA!!!

I hope this has helped and I hope you try this

Mile High Meringue

Enjoy