This easy lemon pie takes less than 5 ingredients and only 15 minutes in the oven. Add some whipped cream and fresh raspberries for the perfect lemony pie!
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Don’t get me wrong. I love me some regular lemon meringue pie and don’t get me started on these cuties but honestly these days, my ambition waffles between wanting to make a layer cake with all the fixings and eating chips and salsa for dinner while binge watching Netflix.
This is a lemon pie that takes all the bright sunshiney goodness of lemon meringue pie but takes less than 10 minutes to put together and only 15 minutes in the oven.
This pie is based on the same idea as key lime pie. Sweetened condensed milk mixed with egg yolks and lemon juice, baked just enough and then given plenty of time in the fridge to chill.
What is sweetened condensed milk?
Sweetened condensed milk is milk where much of the water has been removed AND sugar has been added. It’s thick and slightly more yellow looking and super sweet. Kinda gross to consume straight out of the can, super awesome in certain desserts.
Sweetened condensed milk was actually the first canned milk to be released back in 1856. The idea was to create a milk product that would last longer than just a day or so. (Pasteurization wasn’t even discovered until 1862). The sugar was originally added to inhibit bacterial growth in the milk (kind of like the same reason we add sugar to jam).
I consider it a staple pantry ingredient because it’s used in so many different baking recipes and is obviously super shelf stable. (Note: not the same as evaporated milk).
The hardest part of this entire pie is separating the egg yolks from the egg whites which really isn’t all that hard.
How To Separate Egg Yolks from Whites:
There are a bunch of different ways to separate your eggs. My particular favorite is using the handy little tool you see in the above photo. It came with a set of measuring cups I received as a gift and is probably the most useful little uni-tasker that I own. (If you’re looking for a more, uh, interesting egg separator check out this one.
I, however, did not grow up with such a fancy gadget. I learned to separate eggs by cracking the egg in half and gently shuffling it back in forth into the different halves of the egg shell until the yolk separated from the white. Benefits of this method are that it’s free and you don’t have to spend 20 minutes rooting around in your drawer for your egg separator. Drawbacks are that it’s pretty easy to get one half of the shell that is bigger than the other and then everything gets tricky. Also, much easier to get bits of egg shell in your egg.
Some daring people choose this method of separating their eggs, but I personally don’t love that much egg on my hands. However, it is very quick and effective.
Easy Lemon Pie
Equipment
- Mixer
Ingredients
- 1 9 inch Graham cracker pie crust
- 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 large Lemon zest and juice (about 1/2 cup juice
- 2-3 drops yellow food coloring optional
Instructions
- If using a stand mixer, fit with whisk attachment and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
- Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Discard egg whites or use for another project.
- Mix together sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and zest until smooth
- Add in 2-3 drops of yellow food coloring if desired.
- Pour pie filling into Graham cracker pie crust.
- Bake pie at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before refrigerating.
- Top with whipped cream if desiered and enjoy!
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Happy Baking!
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Happy Baking!