Whenever I think of lemons, I can’t help but think of Lemongrab from Adventure Time, my favorite, lemon-insipred, animated character. From my research, there are two other major characters who are lemon-themed, Lemon Meringue from “doll commercial hidden in a cartoon” Strawberry Short Cake and Honey Lemon, one of the main characters from Big Hero 6, a 3D animated feature film released by Disney in 2014 . I haven’t had a chance to check this movie out yet, but if it ever pops up on Netflix, I’d watch it. Now that my rant about cartoon characters is complete, enjoy this entry about 16-54: Lemony Cottage Cheese Pie, a really weird lemony pie. 🍋
Serving this pie on top of a tapestry featuring a creepy little girl must somehow enhance the flavor of this otherwise weird lemony pie. The background tapestry is probably the most interesting and tasteful part of the entire photograph.
Cottage cheese is one of my favorite ways to eat dairy. Lactaid is the best for finally releasing a lactose-free cottage cheese. This statement isn’t intended as a commercial for Lactaid products, but as someone who lives with lactose intolerance, I really like their lactose-free options.
The ingredients for this lemony pie, including the sugar and flour in the bins on the counter.
It takes a while to melt butter, but I also had to wait for this liquefied butter to cool down.
To start the dough, add the butter to the flour in a bowl.
Next, add the water and start mixing to create the pie crust dough.
TA-DA! A proper dough forms fairly quickly.
Press the dough into the tart pan, stab some fork holes in the bottom, and make sure to push dough in to fill the fluted edges of the tart pan. Pop that bad boy in the oven and start making the filling by separating egg whites and egg yolks.
In the bowl of the mixer, I add the egg whites and cream of tartar to make a stiff meringue which will thicken the filling.
In another bowl, mix the vanilla, egg yolks, lemon peel, chopped almonds, and cottage cheese.
This peak is somewhere between a soft peak and a firm peak, but for this recipe it will do. This meringue is part of a filling of a pie so there is no sugar added like in the top layer of a lemon meringue pie.
Now comes the fun part! Add the meringue into the cottage cheese mixture and fold the two mixtures together. I start with one third of the meringue and fold to combine.
This photo shows when I added the final third of the meringue. The mixture is fluffy and light because of adding the meringue.
The pie crust baked in the oven while I made the filling. I poured the filling on top of the pre-baked crust and put this lemony pie into the oven to bake.
The meringue came out golden brown and delicious, but at this point I was curious if the crust will keep the fluted shape of the pan.
Surprisingly, the crust did hold the shape really well.
The final pie tastes fairly lemony, with nutty bits and cheesy bits in the main body of the dessert. I ate this pie both warm and cold and it is best served lukewarm. Eating the lemony pie frozen is not recommended because it will freezer burn easily. This piece in the photo was too warm and melted as I was eating it. The best piece I had was when the pie cooled completely, but before I froze it. It’s not exactly a lemon meringue pie, but as a different take on a lemony pie, it was definitely a Simply Delicious original.
GRADE: C+
