Year of Pies – Lemon Shaker Pie

March – Lemon Shaker Pie

After two months of “crust-only” baked pies, I decided to do an actual baked pie this month. Originally I wanted to make a Lemon Meringue pie, but it would still be a crust-only pie. I found this recipe via Bon Appetit. The “Shaker” in the name refers to the Christian sect of the religion. I didn’t look into their beliefs too much, but they seem like cool people. And they like pies! Lemon pies!

This pie is pretty unique in that it utilizes the entire lemon – peel and all. You do have to slice the lemons paper thin in order for it to work (not be bitter). The lemons (2) are then macerated in a sugary concoction before being folded in with eggs and other binding ingredients before being poured into the crust.  The recipe can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/shaker-lemon-pie-361949

I used the suggested pie crust in the recipe except I used all butter rather than a butter/shortening split. I think what worked well for me for this recipe was the initial high heat of the bake – 450F! You blast the crust with heat and then lower the temperature for the rest of the baking. I think this helped quickly evaporate that butter and create those flakes. My fluting edge work needs some practice – I guess that comes with doing more double crust pies.

During the bake, the filling did bubble up which created a very interesting crystallized sugary crust on top of the pie. Didn’t add or subtract from the experience but I would have liked to have a more tender top crust. Overall it came out pretty well but it is a very sugary pie. And lemony. Not sure I’d make it again but the actual experience of making it wasn’t too bad!

I think I actually made a strip of crust to patch up my edge work. Eeek!

A very lemon-y slice. It sets up nicely after a few hours in the fridge (I was pretty eager to cut into it)

You can really see the layer of sugar on top of the crust.