Pie for Pi – Vegan Lemon Meringue

OH MY GOSH!

I just realized it was Pi day!

I have to go make a pie!

brb…

Ok…

Let’s try that again…

 

Happy Pi(e) Day everyone!

 

March 14^th is a day that my math teacher heart just cannot let pass unrecognized. For the uninitiated, Pi is the mathematical ratio of the diameter of a circle and that circle’s circumference. The commonly used value of pi is 3.14 hence 3/14 is pi-day.

 

A visual representation of pi. (Image credit: Creative Commons)

 

So what better way to celebrate Pi than with Pie!

I didn’t make that one.

After a quick pantry check I decided to make a lemon meringue pie. I had all the ingredients on hand and it would give me an opportunity to try out some new aquafaba tricks. I mentioned, in my last post, the miraculous vegan wonders of aquafaba as an egg substitute. I love the stuff as a baking additive but how would it fare when it had to stand on its own? I have only made aquafaba meringue one and that was mostly as a proof of concept test. I whipped about a quarter cup of the stuff and a small amount of sugar into a bowl of fluffy yum. So, I knew it would whip but would it hold?

I had to try it out.

So, early this morning I set about making a pie. I started by finding a recipe on-line (from C.S. MacCath’s blog here it is) that seemed reasonable and for which I already had the ingredients on hand. The only component missing from my pantry was cream of tartar and while this won’t have any impact on the actual flavor of the pie, the meringue might not hold up as well as it could over time.  Oh well… Let’s get started.

I started by making the the crust and it came together quickly. It is a shortbread style crust so it starts out as crumbs which you press into the pan to form the shell.

Crusty Crumbs

Pie shell prebake

The meringue took a little bit less than 15 minutes to go from water to whipped.

Aquafaba whipping after 1 minute

At 5 minutes

At 10 minutes

The filling… about the filling…

As I write this, the pie is cooling on the dining room table. I won’t have any idea how it came out exactly until it is completely cooled but it looks pretty good.

I always forget to make the little peaks when I make meringue.

I have to admit that I fear the filling will not set up completely. I don’t think I let it cook long enough… I mean… It’s possible I may have been watching Pride and Prejudice while I was in the kitchen… and… if that were the case, I may not have paid as much attention as I should have while the filling was cooking. That might have happened. I mean it’s a big universe right…. Lots of things can happen… We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Fingers crossed… Cutting the first slice and…

It kinda set up… mostly… Amazingly it was the filling that failed and not the meringue. The first slice turned into a bit of a puddle on the plate but the second slice was a little more pie-like ( I let it cool much longer) here’s a shot of the pie, post slicing.

Totally my fault though… I should have let it cool longer. Actually, I blame Mr. Darcy.

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I  admire  and love you.

Overall, the pie was pretty tasty.I might make this again, being a bit more careful when cooking the filling and after stocking cream of tartar in my pantry. The crust was good. It did taste vaguely of coconut though and while I don’t mind, it is noticeable so I might not use the same shortening again for this particular application. The filling was delicious but a bit runny because I didn’t cook it long enough but after letting it cool it did eventually set up enough to be sliced. I might adjust the sugar content down a bit also as it was WAY sweet. I prefer my lemon a little more on the tart side though so this might be a personal preference. And, the star, the aquafaba meringue, held up fairly well despite missing an ingredient and didn’t taste at all of garbanzo.

Not a bad way to spend a morning and not a bad way to celebrate Pi(e) Day.

If you make this recipe let me know how it turns out!

Cornbread… Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that!

Cornbread is pretty important in my house. It’s a traditional staple food, it’s inexpensive, easy to make, and (most importantly) it is delicious. DE-LISH-OUS!

My choice to embark on this this mostly plant-based journey was at first somewhat controversial. You see, I do pretty much all the cooking. I choose the food, I prep the food, I cook the food, but we all eat the food. So, as you can probably imagine there was a small amount of trepidation when it was announced. Actually, “small amount of trepidation” might actually be underselling it a little. You see, with this announcement not only were meaty staple dishes like oven-fried chicken, herbed pork roast, and pan-seared steak off the menu but many regular ingredients were also placed on the restricted list. Butter, Eggs, and milk… all gone.

So where did that leave cornbread?

Absent from the dinner table, for a while anyway, and then one day I decided to attempt and adaptation of my cornbread recipe. It seemed straightforward enough… whole milk is an easy switch with almond milk. Butter can be traded for vegan margarine. It seemed like the only thing standing between me and vegan cornbread was an egg.

Enter Aquafaba.

Don’t know what that is? It’s a miracle! That’s what it is!

Simply stated aquafaba is the “bean water” from cooked or canned chickpeas. I had my doubts too but a cake, several pancakes, and multiple batches of cornbread later I am an aquafaba believer. Food52 has a great post on vegan egg replacers where several types are put to the test and aquafaba outperformed the others by a pretty wide margin.

I usually have Simple Truth Organic garbanzo beans in my pantry and a single can yields about a cup of precious aquafaba. I can store it in the fridge for a day or two but longer than that I freeze it. When I’m ready to use it I simply drain the water from the can or thaw a cube and use directly in recipe as normal. That’s all there is to it. The official site says that 3 tablespoons is equal to a single egg but I find that a quarter-cup of aquafaba works a little better for me when I bake with it.

We’ll talk a lot more about aquafaba soon. I promise.

Back to the cornbread.

After a bit of trial and error I came up with a brand new recipe and I think it’s pretty darn good one too. I use it a lot. In fact, it has completely replaced my own original recipe which was itself adapted from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook recipe and my grandmother’s own original recipe. It is a sweet cornbread but not overly sweet. It has yummy crisp edges and moist tender crumb. It is easy to make and the ingredients are fairly common pantry staples.  We ate this with vegetarian chili and it was a big hit! If you try this cornbread let me know how it turns out!

I hope you like it!

The following recipe makes one 8 serving batch of cornbread. Use an 8 x 8 inch square pan or an 8-inch round.

 

Vegan Cornbread

Ingredients:

TEAM DRY:

1 cup All-Purpose flour

1 cup Cornmeal

¼ cup Sugar

1 Tbs. Baking Powder

t tsp. Salt

TEAM WET:

1 cup Almond Milk

¼ cup Aquafaba

3 Tbs. melted coconut oil (could also use vegan margarine, canola oil, or vegetable oil)

Instructions:

1. Use one tablespoon of the oil to coat the pan or skillet and set aside.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. (If using a cast iron or heavy glass pan place it in the oven now to preheat along with the oven.)
3. Add all of team dry to a mixing bowl and using a wisk or a fork, mix until all ingredients until thoroughly combined
4. Add all of the wet ingredients to the dry mix and stir until combined.
5. Allow the mix to sit for about 5-10 minutes.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan (being especially careful if you have preheated your pan) and place into oven for 20 – 25 minutes.
7. Cornbread is ready when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool at least 5 minutes before serving.