Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

I don’t know about you, but my Easter season seemed to be filled with a ton of homemade treats…and let’s not forget the Easter candy. I think Easter has the best candy of all the other holidays, hands down!  Cadbury Crème Eggs, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, Life Saver Jellybeans…need I say more? 

So with all the treats we’ve all consumed over the last few weeks, I needed a dessert that packed a lot of flavor, but not a whole lot of calories…and so the Mini Lemon Meringue Pies were born! These were incredibly easy to make and very yummy. They are in my opinion, an amuse bouche-sized dessert.

Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

Ingredients:

Filling:

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

3 egg yolks

24 vanilla wafer cookies

Meringue:

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 cup sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven at 325 degrees F.

Line a mini muffin tin with paper liners and place a vanilla wafer cookie in each liner.

In medium bowl, combine milk, lemon juice, and zest; blend in egg yolks. Divide among the mini muffin tin. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until the filling is just set, it can still be wobbly in the center when shaken.

With an electric mixer, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar until stiff. Transfer the meringue to a piping bag fitted with a medium star tip. Pipe stars of meringue all over the surface of each mini pie. With a blow torch, carefully brown the meringue on top of the pies.

If you don’t have a blow torch, no problem! Set the broiler on your oven to low. Once the oven has preheated, place your mini meringue pies on the middle rack. Crack the oven door open and let the meringues brown for 2-4 minutes (ovens differ). Watch the meringues carefully because they’ll go from perfectly done to burned rather quickly.

Source: Adapted from Paula Deen via FoodNetwork.com