Here's a test run of the chocolate meringue pie. I wanted to compare two recipes, so made 2 pies.
Cutting fat into flour for Pie crust.
For the test crust I used:
2 C Flour
1/2 C fat (Fat in this case was 1/4 C lard and 1/4 C butter)
1 T. salt
1/4 C whole milk
I'll not bore everyone with photos at each step unless expressly requested to do so. The quick list is form dough into 2 discs, pop in freezer for 20 min, roll out dough, blind bake.
Here's one of the crusts after baking:
Although the crust appeared to have a few nice flaky air pockets, it came out a bit dense, so I'll use vegetable oil for Saturday.
Here's the filling cooking, it is essentially chocolate pudding. It is starting to thicken up; I'm using a whisk and spatula to get the lumps out:
This is where I thought the pudding needed to be before taking it off the heat:
Whipping egg whites and sugar for meringue:
My great grandma's recipe is on the left, and another I found is on the right, which uses less flour, double the chocolate, evaporated milk instead of regular, and no vanilla. I expected the one on the right to be richer and that I'd like it more (sorry Mamaw.) You can see the one on the right has more volume, since it is filling its pie shell more than my great grandma's.
And the pies after they came out of the oven, about 20 minutes, just to brown the meringue:
I liked the vanilla flavor in my great grandma's filling, but it tasted too much of flour, and both were really sweet. I was conflicted which one I should make for next Saturday.
I'm really glad I did a test run, because I've never made this pie before. While fun to make, the pies ended up being a disaster. The fillings were both runny because I hadn't cooked them enough on the stove. Evidently for this recipe, when it says the pudding should coat the spoon, it means the pudding should coat the spoon 1/2"-1"! Also I didn't use cream of tartar in the meringue, but I will next time because this morning the meringue had wept, and little brown granules of syrupy sugar were all over the surface.
Since the pies weren't edible as pies, this morning after consulting the method for making pastry cream, I took the meringue off both pies and scraped the filling into a pan (for the pie on the right) and cooked it until it was almost the consistency I wanted for the actual pie. For my great grandma's recipe, I removed the meringue and baked the rest of the pie in the oven for 25 minutes. The fillings were basically fixed, although there were some bits of meringue I couldn't get out of the one I reheated in the pan, so the texture wasn't as smooth as it should be. The meringue was beyond saving, but at least now I'll have an eye for what the pie should turn out to be.
I'm glad I attempted to correct the pies as well, because once the filling cooked properly (somewhat properly) the taste of flour subsided and the level of sugar mellowed out in my great grandma's pie; I could also taste the eggs, it was like a custard.
The other pie was still too sweet, although more chocolatey, so I've decided to go with the family recipe. I'll make 2 pies again for Saturday, both using Mamaw's recipe - one of which will have the ratio of chocolate bumped up.
The greens will pose no similar problems, having been made many times in the past, and needing no test run
I'll also bring a couple gallons of sweet tea, which I've had great success making before!
Edited to bring photo size down.
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