Lemon Meringue Pie

My Uncle was recently diagnosed with diabetes and his (and My) birthday is tomorrow. I asked him what he wanted for a cake/pie/dessert and I would make it diabetic friendly.  He wanted lemon meringue pie. So.. Here is what I found. This was taken from this website - here.

Please see my notes at the very bottom of the recipe:

Ingredients:

 

Crust: 

• 1/2 cup ground almonds
• 1/3 cup(33grams) half or whole pecans
• 2 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter
• 1 Tablespoon Splenda
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Filling: 

• 2 whole large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup Sugar Substitute
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice 
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon zest (I used Lemon extract)
• 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• pinch of salt

Meringue: 

• 4 Large Egg Whites
• 1/4 cup Sugar Substitute
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• pinch of salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven 350F

Crust: 

1. In food processes(or magic bullet or coffee grinder) pulse pecans till a mill texture(like the ground almonds)
2. In small bowl mix all ingredients
3. Spray 5 individual serving pie pans with cooking spray
4. Divide crust mixture among pans, about a Tablespoon per pan.
5. Press down with your finders firmly on the bottom, not sides though like a traditional pie(IF you want it to have crust all up the sides you would have to double crust recipe + add the extra carbs, so that was not happening for me  )
6. Bake crust at 350F for 8 minutes
7. Let cool at room temperature while making filling

  Filling:

1. Add all filling ingredients to a small heavy bottom saucepan. Whisk over MED heat till mixture starts to become thick.
2. Using a fine mesh strainer, strain the mixture(this gets out all lemon seeds and any cooked egg bits you might have)
3. Divide filling mixture among the 5 pie pans equally, about 1/4 cup per pie.
4. Set in fridge to cool at least 1/2 hour.

  

Meringue:

1. Put egg whites in mixer bowl, add salt.
2. Mix till frothy.
3. Add cream of tartar & splenda.
4. Mix till you have a firm meringue/Stiff peaks, about 2-3 mins.

  

Assembly:

Preheat over to 500F

Divide Meringue equally among the 5 chilled pie's

Spoon on and smooth with small spatula

Bake at 500F for 8 minutes

Let pies cool, then refrigerate

Serve cold

Nutritional Information:

Energy 288 kcal

Carbohydrate, by difference 9.57 g

Sugars, total 1.66 g

Fiber, total dietary 1.91 g

Protein9.84 g

Total lipid (fat)25.68 g

MY NOTES

To ensure that the sweetener wasn't very off-puting ( my uncle hates artificial sweetener) I used the Truvia baking blend which has a combination of Stevia, Erythritol, and Cane Sugar. It requires 1/2 the amount of sugar called for in a recipe. So if a recipe states 1 cup, you would only use 1/2 cup of Truvia.  This unfortunately does raise the carb count a little bit.  

After tasting the pie, halving the listed sugar in the recipe could be reduced even further as it turned out still very very sweet. My recommendation would be (if using Truvia baking blend)

Crust: 1/2 Tablespoon
Filling: 1/8 Cup
Meringue: 1 Tablespoon

When doing the meringue I goofed up and just dumped everything into my kitchen aid at once and just whipped the hell out of it. It seemed to be just fine. The recipe states to flatten the meringue but I like peaks. So I shortened the bake time by 1 minute to avoid burning the meringue too much. 

The nutrition detail I have listed below is using the Truvia Baking Blend.