Orange Meringue Pie

Tonight I present a recipe for orange meringue pie. This is most definitely the most ambitious dessert I have tried yet. I found this over at allrecipes.com and made it in an evening. Here's what you will need.

For the crust:

• 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup melted butter or margarine

When I made the crust, I just bought a box of graham crackers and hand crushed them. Try to make sure there are not any big pieces. Combine the crumbs with the sugar and mix it together. After it's mixed, stir in the butter. I made the mistake of only using softened butter, so it was almost like trying to cream the butter and sugar together. After it's all mixed, press onto the sides and bottom of a 9-in pie tin. You will want to bake it at 375 F for about 10 minutes, or until it's lightly browned.

To make the filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel
• 1 tablespoon butter

To begin, combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan. Whisk in the orange juice and water until it's smooth. Cook it over medium heat until it's thickened and bubbling. Once it starts bubbling, reduce the heat and stir for 2 minutes.

This next part I did while the filling was on the stove. You need to separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. The whites are used later. For this, I used a two bowl method where I broke the egg into a bowl and scooped out the yolk and let the white kind of drain off. I then put the yolks in a separate bowl and beat them. After the mixture on the stove has been heated, take 1 cup of the filling and mix it with the egg yolks and then return it to the pan after it's mixed. Then bring the filling to a gentle boil and cook and stir for 2 minutes.

Next mix in the lime juice, orange peel, and butter and pour it into the pie crust. The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons lime juice and 4 teaspoons of grated orange peel. I used 3 or 4 tablespoons of lime juice because I didn't have the proper tool for zesting an orange. So I had about 2 teaspoons of the grated orange peel.

To make the meringue:

• 3 egg whites
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 6 tablespoons sugar

This part was a bit tricky. You can do this by hand, or use this handy guide I found over at thekitchn.com to do it with a mixer. Basically mix it until it starts to get foamy, then add the cream of tartar. Keep mixing and once it hits the soft peak stage, add the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. After the sugar is added, mix until you get stiff peaks.

Once it's done, spread it over the filling so it seals the edges of the pie to the crust.

Putting it all together:

Once it's all together, you want to bake it at 350 F for around 15 minutes or until the top starts to have a golden color. Cool it for an hour and refrigerate before serving.

All in all, this turned out pretty well. The original website says that it should take about an hour total, but that might only be true if you have done this a few times. It took me about 2 hours total to make this dessert, but it was worth it.

Now with flavor!

Ah the joys of cooking! The smells, the tastes, the satisfaction of taking a combination of ingredients, each of which may be dull and bland on its own, and creating with them a masterpiece which can evoke great satisfaction and joy.

Despite cooking being considered womens' turf, I have found that I enjoy cooking. I seem to have a special affinity for desserts, which has led to me being described as "domesticated" by members of the opposite sex. If you, as a reader, cannot handle that sort of description for yourself and feel emasculated by that, you're welcome to stop here, but I have a different view.

Now, before I continue, I'll lay a foundation. I am a Christian guy who is one year out of college. This blog will not be all about cooking, however I may post particularly good recipes that I find from time to time. Most posts will be somewhat random ranging from religious or political discussion to how to set use the Model-View-Presenter design pattern in .NET (if you don't know what that is, don't worry. It won't be on the test).

Now, since I was young, both of my parents have cooked. Sometimes my mom's food was better and sometimes it was my dad who prepared the better meal. Since I am relatively frugal and I don't want to eat Chef Boyardee or cereal for every meal, I decided it would be in my best interest to learn to cook. But whatever the meal, you can bet there was a recipe involved.

To me, cooking is a science. Really, cooking can be described as a series of chemical reactions between the various ingredients in order that some expected result is achieved. Much like chemistry class, if you follow the right steps at the right time, you will get the expected result. Improvisation can, at times, be beneficial or it may be harmful. Add a different ingredient or perform a different step and you may end up with an unexpected result which may be better. Or you may end up with something is so vile which you could use it for a pesticide on your garden.

As I began cooking over the past few months, I have learned something. While cooking is useful for providing sustenance, one can draw a parallel between how a Christian ought to live and cooking. Some of you may be familiar with the Bible, which I have heard described as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. In my opinion, that sounds a lot like a recipe for life. Now, I'm not talking about a legalistic view of Christianity. It is not merely enough to just follow the recipe. Like with cooking, there is something missing from a Christianity in which just following the rules gets the expected result.

Even with the ingredients and the correct mixture, a little bit of love and patience are needed to truly experience the full potential of cooking. Without patience, you will try to rush cooking and that can yield unfavorable results. For example, if you decide to turn up the heat to make a cake bake quicker, it may become dry and burned on the outside, while the inside may be doughy and not baked (which is dangerous if you used eggs, by the way). In the same way, trying to rush God's plans for our lives by taking our lives in our own hands will only get us burned. Deciding to live your life according to your own way instead of God's way is only a recipe for disaster.

I am not yet confident in my abilities that I can come up with my own recipes, but I hope I may be able to do that some day. Most of my cooking is done with recipes from others who have used them and have seen the results. In other words, I trust the recipes of those who have experience. As a fallen human, I try not to trust in my own abilities to take my life in the right direction. Instead, I try to trust in God's experience and His plans for my life. And I am confident that His plans form a recipe which will yield a truly amazing result which I could never experience on my own.