ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco is joined by senior test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic to help caller Erin redeem her baking reputation after a Thanksgiving pie gone wrong.
Erin signed up to make a lemon meringue pie at Thanksgiving, but the recipe she chose (obviously not a Bon Appetit recipe) didn’t quite turn out how she wanted it to. It wobbled, and ultimately turned into lemon meringue soup, rather than firm into something sliceable Chris calls on Shilpa, the baking wizard of the test kitchen, to share some wisdom with Erin—although Shilpa admits, to Chris’s dismay, that she’s not a fan of lemon meringue pie. Shilpa diagnoses that the issue Erin ran into had to do with starch activation. She explains that if you don’t cook egg yolks to a certain temperature, the egg protein doesn’t fully denature and continues to eat away at the cornstarch, preventing the pie filling from congealing and setting.
Chris comes to battle prepared with his own Lemon Meringue Pie recipe For Erin, while Shilpa searches for a newer, shinier citrus pie to bring to the showdown. She suggests this Cherry Lemonade Beach Pie and her own recipe for Triple Citrus Creamsicle Pie, which are both inspired by the summer beach staples. Listen now to hear whether Erin is able to achieve citrusy pie perfection.