Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Shaker Lemon Pie


There is nothing more disappointing than a pie that turns out…less than delicious. All that time and effort, not to mention ingredients—gone to waste. I try to mitigate these kinds of results by choosing recipes that come from trusted sources and/or have excellent reviews (if they are online). Martha is usually a pretty trustworthy source. But this pie. A big fat yellow disappointment.


I don’t think I did anything wrong, I think it’s just not a pie that I like (nor does anyone in my family). It’s possible that my lemons weren’t sliced quite thin enough.


It’s possible that they weren’t large enough, yielding too little lemon in relation to sugar/eggs. But I don’t know that perfectly sliced lemons or the perfect proportion of lemon slices would have made the difference for me. The taste was just really uneven. Some bites were very lemony, some very eggy, some tooth-achingly sweet. Everything was stirred together completely, as it should have been. And even though the lemon slices sat, coated in sugar, for almost 24 hours, they still had a bitterness that was right on the verge of metallic.


It just…didn’t taste very good. And wasn’t the lemony dessert I was craving.

I’m tempted to make a Cherry-Chocolate pie to make up for the fact that I didn’t get to enjoy the pie treat I was looking forward to. But that would still leave me down one lemon dessert. Maybe I’ll make lemon bars using a trusted recipe from my dear friend Tita Rax. Which should I do? Help me decide.

And maybe one of you should try this recipe. One of you who owns a mandoline for slicing things super thin. And report back on how it turns out for you.


TGIP Rating--Shaker Lemon Pie--NEVER AGAIN. Not worth even 5 minutes of effort.

Next up: mr. is celebrating his 40th birthday in a week and a half. Per his request, I'm combining a couple of recipes to make a Dark Mocha Cake. And I think it will turn out beyummy (beyond yummy).

3 comments:

Vickie said...

That's sad, and too bad about your Shaker Lemon Pie. I know what you mean about the disappointment. The idea of it had my mouth watering.

Funny thing, though. I usually think Martha Stewart's recipes are at least trustworthy, if not delicious. Yet, just this week I've also had a failure with one of hers, a carrot cupcake recipe. Neither tasty nor pretty; just a flop.

Unknown said...

It sounds like you made this the same way I did, but we LOVED it... even my 3 year old ate some and it was gone within 12 hours.

I didn't use Martha's recipe though... she calls for a TON of eggs.

I found mine in Southern Living but the same recipe is here: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1842321

If you feel the urge to try one more time, definitely wait for Meyer Lemons!

Unknown said...

I lied I lied!! Go to: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/shaker-lemon-pie/Detail.aspx

That's the right recipe :) The other one calls for cream which kind of detracts from the whole "simple and only 3 ingredients" point of the pie.