Citrus Meringue Pie #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

Libby Klein I got this pie from a list of Food and Wine Magazine's 40 Best Recipes Ever and made it gluten free. It's very zingy - which I like. In fact, you may have noticed that I have a thing for lemony desserts. This was a keeper and I'll be making it again, but next time I'll double the meringue.

I use a blowtorch from the hardware store to toast the meringue. It's also good for melting the sugar for Crème Brûlée and scaring people who didn't know you had a full sized blowtorch in the cabinet.

You can find another - non orangey - version of this gluten-free pie crust in my recipe for petit fruit pies from last summer. Those were really good too.

Flaky Gluten-Free Citrus Pie Crust

Ingredients:

3 cups one-to-one Gluten-Free blend (or all-purpose flour)
1 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 cups good butter, cold
1 egg
1 TBSP neutral vinegar
1 Tbsp orange zest
1/3 cup orange juice

Directions:

Blitz your flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor. Add your butter in cubes and blitz until the mixture is crumbly. Beat your egg and vinegar together. Blitz into the crumbly dough. Add your orange zest and cold orange juice in small amounts with the food processor on and watch the dough come together. Only add enough water to make a cohesive pastry dough. You don't want it too dry, but you should be able to pat it into a ball and flatten it to a disc pretty easily. Flatten dough into a disk; wrap in plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour or up to 2 days.

  

Preheat oven to 350°F. Unwrap dough, and roll into a 12-inch circle on a lightly floured surface. Without stretching dough, fit dough circle into a 9-inch pie plate. Fold edge of dough under, and crimp edges or press with the tines of a fork. Using a fork, prick bottom of dough all over. Freeze 15 minutes. Line pastry with parchment paper; fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake in preheated oven until golden brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. Remove weights and parchment; bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and cool pastry shell completely before filling, about 30 minutes.

Citrus Meringue Filling

Filling

1/2 cup cornstarch
2 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest plus 6 tablespoons lemon juice (from 3 lemons), divided
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 2 limes)
1 2/3 cups water
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided 
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Meringue

4 large eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

 

Prepare the filling

Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir together cornstarch, lemon juice, and lime juice in a medium nonreactive saucepan until cornstarch dissolves. Stir in 1 1/2 cups water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and lemon zest. Bring to a boil over medium-low, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until thickened, about 15 minutes. (Mixture will thicken as it cooks.) Remove from heat.

 

Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl. Gradually whisk in hot lemon-lime mixture. Pour mixture into pastry shell. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto surface, and let cool 30 minutes.

Combine egg whites and remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt in bowl of a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until frothy, about 1 minute. Gradually add cream of tartar and remaining 1/2 cup sugar, beating on medium speed until mixture forms stiff, glossy peaks, about 4 minutes.

Gently dollop the meringue over warm lemon-lime filling. Using the back of a spoon, spread meringue to edges. Swirl decoratively with spoon. Hit it with a blowtorch until the meringue is golden brown, about 1 to 2 minutes. If you don’t have a blowtorch, you can put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes but really keep an eye on it.

Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. Transfer to the refrigerator until well chilled, about 3 hours.

 

Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop is trying to reinvent herself as a musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad—in this ​unforgettable new mystery brimming with hilarity and heart.

Layla is taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts.

After her first career ended in a literal explosion, Layla’s trying to eke out a living as a rock musician. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .

Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . .

Libby Klein writes ridiculously funny murder mysteries from her Northern Virginia office with a very naughty calico Persian named Miss Eliza Doolittle, and a sweet black Lab named Vader. She can name that tune for 70s and 80s rock in the first few notes, and she's translated her love of classic rock into her Layla Virtue Mysteries. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because bread is one of her love languages, she includes the recipes for gluten free goodies in her Cape May based Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around travel, and eating, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense on her website www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/