by: Kate McMillan
Cook Time
1 hours 10 minutes
Prep Time
20 minutes
Yield
Serves 6-8
Total Time
1 hours 10 minutes
Prep Time
20 minutes
Yield
Serves 6-8
summary
Every Thanksgiving dinner needs to end with a pumpkin pie! We gave this one a fun twist by topping it with toasted meringue. We used a Swiss meringue to ensure that the eggs are safe to eat by heating them before we whipped them. It adds a sweet and luscious—not to mention beautiful—topping to this fan favorite.
ingredients
- Pumpkin Pie
- Store-bought pie dough (enough for 1 crust)
- 1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin puree
- 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- Meringue Topping
- 4 egg whites
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
directions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Line a 9-inch pie pan with the dough and crimp the edges. Using the tines of a fork, prick the dough several times all over. Fill the bottom of the dish with pie weights. Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake in the oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove pie weights and set pie crust aside. Lower oven temperature to 350°F.
- To make the pie filling, whisk together the pumpkin puree, evaporated milk, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Carefully pour into the par-baked pie shell. Transfer to the oven and bake until filling is set, about 1 hour. Set aside to cool on a wire rack.
- To make the meringue, set a saucepan filled with 2 inches of water over high heat. Bring the water to a simmer over medium-low heat. Add the egg whites, sugar, salt and cream of tartar to a stainless steel mixing bowl and set over the saucepan of simmering water. It is important that the bowl is not touching the water. Cook, stirring often, until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a stand-up mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
- Whisk the meringue on medium-low for 2 minutes. Turn up to high and continue to whisk until stiff peaks form, about 4 minutes.
- Pile the meringue onto the pie and use the back of a spoon to create peaks by pulling the meringue upwards. Using a kitchen torch, carefully brown the meringue. Slice and serve.
notes
If you want to make your own pie dough, you can find our recipe here.
If you don’t have a kitchen torch, you can toast the top of the meringue by placing it 4–6 inches below the broiler in your oven. Just watch it carefully, as it only takes seconds.
You can make the pie a day in advance, but don’t make the meringue until the day of service as the meringue doesn’t do well in the refrigerator.
Cream of tartar is added to meringue to help it stabilize.
It is important to par-bake a pie crust to ensure that you don’t get a soggy bottom. If you don’t have pie weights, you can use dried beans.
