When making a home made lemon meringue pie…….?
Hi…Your pie filling should be hot when you place the meringue on it… WHY SHOULD THE FILLING BE HOT WHEN YOU TOP IT WITH THE MERINGUE? Steam billowing from a hot filling quickly passes through the baking meringue instead of lingering at the filling-meringue interface. However, some of the steam will collect near the surface of the meringue. As the meringue cools, it contracts (shrinks) slightly ― just enough, after a few hours, to pop this moisture onto the surface in tiny golden brown droplets, or beads. The beads form faster if the weather is humid or if the pie is chilled. A tiny bit of cornstarch (such as in the recipe here) whipped with the sugar into the meringue traps some of this moisture and reduces beading. If the meringue is swirled onto a cool filling and baked, steam in the reheating filling just reaches the meringue. As the pie cools, the steam condenses to form the sweet weeping (sometimes a pool) under the meringue. And when the pie is cut, the meringue is inclined t
