Chapter Eight: Opposites Attract

This weekend I had to flip my usual schedule apart. Usually, as I mentioned before, Sunday is for pie baking so I can post the blog (in a usually timely manner) on Monday, because #MondayIsPieDay! But this week I had a short trip planned out of town for the weekend, so I baked on Friday.

My sister Lisa celebrated her birthday last week, as did my sister from another mister, Bridget (or sister-in-law, more formally.) So coming from three different cities, we all came together in St. Louis, Missouri for some birthday festivities. Me, being the sweetest sister of the three who is also chronicling pie, I couldn't show up empty handed! I spoke briefly with both, in what I thought was a very innocent manner, around Christmastime about their favorite types of pie. (Just gathering information on different pies, you know.)



It came as no surprise to me that Lisa, after some thought, said Lemon Chess Pie. Lisa loves lemon flavored stuff: Lemon bars, Savannah Smiles, lemon creme chocolates. Bridget gave it a little more thought, mainly because she couldn't decide, and said anything chocolate. My hope was to seamlessly fuse the two p-ideas together to create a super special birthday pie for my two sisters. Lemon and chocolate are not two flavors that really compliment each other, so I was having a difficult time coming up with something. December was still two months away from birthday time and the stakes were low since it was just going to be in blog form.

About a month ago Lisa came up with the idea for meeting up for a birthday-time get together. (Not for me. My birthday is in November.) Now I had the opportunity to make the hypothetical pie a reality for birthday weekend. Here were my issues:

1. I wanted a pie that traveled reasonably well. I would be driving four hours to the shindig and I didn't want to let the pie get soggy during that time.
2. Lemon for Lisa.
3. Chocolate for Bridget.
4. Something that hopefully everyone might like.

I'm not a fan of chess pies. My brain does a weird disassociative thing when my palette encounters the crunchy top that has come away from the *almost* creamy center. And honestly, as I mentioned once already, I didn't know how to combine chocolate and lemon in a way that would taste good.

I was running out of time and ideas and decided on lemon meringue. No chocolate, but everyone seems to like a lemon meringue pie. Except me. I kind of loathe the fluffy meringue that tops most meringue pies. I like marshmallows. I love dried meringue cookies. And maybe it's just the type of meringue that tops those pies, but it feels too airy and not flavorful enough to accompany pie. (What is wrong with me??? If I mention in one post two pies I don't like, why did I devote a year to pie? There still isn't an answer to that.) But I was going to try, gosh darn it, to make a GOOD lemon meringue pie.

Except it doesn't have chocolate. And it wouldn't travel well, especially for four hours in a car during an unseasonably warm weekend. Back to the drawing board.

Inspiration hit when i started thumbing through my books for an alluring recipe. If you've ever been into a fancy French restaurant or bake shop you may have noted cute little custard-like tartlets with the word "Citron" scrawled out in chocolate. That, amazingly, is a citron tart. (Genius, no?) Lemon curd blended with buttercream with a chocolate adornment. I tweaked a fantastic recipe, took it to St. Louis, and hoped that everyone would be pleased.

And they were! It was a delicious success. I could have eaten about four more helpings, but it was delightful to be able to share a pie with so many people who seemed to enjoy it as much as I do. I wanted to get a picture of everyone eating pie, but I had to settle for this one.

Happy birthday girls!

Left to right: Daughter, Me, Husband, Lisa, Son, and Bridget. Roasting marshmallows.

Citron Birthday Pie

1 prebaked pie shell (I would have used a cookie crust, but I still had this one crust from the day I made multiple. I chose convenience.)
6 ounces lemon curd
24 ounces Swiss Buttercream
Melted chocolate and powdered sugar

To make the lemon curd:
Combine two egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar in a small saucepan. Add the zest of two lemons, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and 3 1/2 tablespoons butter to the yolks and bring to a boil on low heat stirring constantly. Continue cooking until the curd thickens, then strain into a bowl to use later.

Some things to note:

• My easy method for juicing citrus without a juicer: Zest your lemons and then roll the zested lemons firmly between the heel of your hand and the counter. This will explode the juice pods in the fruit and make the lemon feel like a heavy water balloon. Then cut a "mouth" in the lemon and squeeze all the exploded juice out. If everything is right, the used lemons will kind of resemble a long-toothed, pale Pac-Man. 

• Do not stop stirring the curd. Heating eggs without constant agitation will result in a lumpy, scrambled mess. The step to strain at the end is to remove zest, not egg chunks.

To make the buttercream:
Whip 1/2 cup of egg whites and seven ounces of sugar in a bowl over boiling water until they form soft peaks. The meringue will be glossy and very sticky.
Cream together eight ounces of butter (or two sticks) and 2 1/2 ounces of vegetable shortening until soft and well combined. Fold in 1/3 of the meringue and combine completely. Fold in the remaining meringue and add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Bring it all together:
Fold the lemon curd and buttercream together until smoothly combined. Spread evenly into the pie shell and chill for one hour (at least.) Dust the top with powdered sugar and adorn with chocolate drizzle. Cover and store refrigerated for multiple days or at room temperature for one day. Or just cut into it and enjoy that sucker now!

Next week:
I've been going with some pretty heavy techniques for a few weeks now. So next week I'll be going simple and baking with a helper (or two.)