Semi Homemade Chocolate Meringue Pie

My husband loves, loves, loves chocolate meringue pie. One of his favorite childhood memories is going to his grandmother's house and seeing the pies sitting on her dryer in her garage cooling.

I think I've heard this story a billion times. He brought it up again the other day. I thought, why don't I make him a chocolate meringue pie?

I know why. I'm intimidated.  Intimidated by meringue. I always heard that you have to use a clean glass bowl, clean beaters, exactly room temperature egg whites and then maybe you might get a good meringue. Maybe not.

Well, I turned to my BFF, YouTube, and watched several videos on making meringue. Again, intimidated. Then I got a genius idea, meringue powder. I use meringue powder all the time when making royal icing. Couldn't I use it to make meringue. Yes.

Here's the low down.

Bake your pie shell. I used a frozen one. Just thaw it, prick it with a fork and bake it according to the directions. Then, let it cool.

Make your chocolate filling. I used pudding from a box. Just make the pudding according to the pie filling directions and poor into the pie filling.

For the meringue, I used 1/2 cup hot water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Get out your electric mixer and beat until  mixed.  Then I added 1/4 cup of meringue powder and beat, beat, beat, beat & beat the mixture. Then I turned the mixer on high and beat it some more. Finally, it started coming together.

Beat until the mixture gets stiff and can make peaks if you pull at it. Spread on the pie.

Bake for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Meringue will be harder.

Then I broiled it for just a few minutes until the top browned.


It didn't take long and I was so happy with how it turned out.

Not bad, eh?