My mother was a good cook, and made many delish pies, including lemon meringue. I’ve always liked the flavor of oranges, so I ask her to make an orange meringue pie. She declined, saying that it wouldn’t work, but offered no explanation that I found convincing.

I don’t bake pies myself, but I know that many forum members do, so I’m asking for comments.

Never heard of it. I'll try anything once if anybody is looking for a taste tester.

Yes, it’s doable. You use a little more juice as lemon juice is just stronger in flavor. But it’s easily doable. Now a lemon meringue pie is well balanced by the tartness of the lemon, and the sweetness of the meringue. With using orange, it’ll just be a lot sweeter. Not necessarily bad.
Honestly, most pies are easy to make, provided you have the equipment and can follow the directions to the letter. That’s the thing I don’t like about baking. Measurements have to be exact.

Grab a recipe and give it a shot. I think you’ll be happy with the results.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
...You use a little more juice as lemon juice is just stronger in flavor...

I bet doing a reduction on the orange juice would work too. The benefit would be keeping the same ratio of wet ingredients and dry ingredients as the base recipe.

Just guessing, but maybe orange juice isn't acidic enough to curdle the filling. I guess lemon juice could be added, but then it wouldn't likely taste what you anticipated.

As to the reduction and curdling, and the recipes I have read, it’s different chemistry. You have to use a starch (most call for corn starch) to thicken the orange filling. I’m with Todd though. I think using some concentrated OJ would add to the depth of flavor.

You might try that with blood oranges - much more tart than Navel or Valencia varieties, but will still give you the orange flavor you're looking for.

Should be doable. I would make the custard with frozen concentrate OJ, evaporated milk, eggs, corn starch, sugar, orange zest, and salt, maybe a few small pours of cream. Especially the zest. Hard to think of any accent flavors to include, maybe cardamom, or mango, or tamarind...

Did anybody Google it? https://www.allrecipes.com/rec...orange-meringue-pie/

I'd rather try bacon meringue pie.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
My mother was a good cook, and made many delish pies, including lemon meringue. I’ve always liked the flavor of oranges, so I ask her to make an orange meringue pie. She declined, saying that it wouldn’t work, but offered no explanation that I found convincing.

I don’t bake pies myself, but I know that many forum members do, so I’m asking for comments.

I wondered about that one time aloud, and mom substituted navel orange for lemon meringue recipe. It was too sweet. Not nearly as good as I would have thought...we mentioned it a few years later to my grand.other- a truly talented baker - who said the problem was the type of orange...and recommended using sour oranges (Seville oranges) instead. It worked much better.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
As to the reduction and curdling, and the recipes I have read, it’s different chemistry. You have to use a starch (most call for corn starch) to thicken the orange filling. I’m with Todd though. I think using some concentrated OJ would add to the depth of flavor.

I've never heard of it, but would prefer it to lemon meringue. But also think the orange would need to be concentrated.

Updated to add: I just googled recipes on it and they all use orange juice concentrate, cornstarch and some lemon juice.

My mother was a world class baker especially famous for her lemon meringue pies. Back in the 60s I remember my dad bringing home a box of oranges someone had given him and mom made a couple orange meringue pies. They were good but lemon was better.

Try this. This will fill two generous 10 inch pie shells.

Water 4 pints
Sugar 1 lb
add together bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar. While the water/sugar is coming up to heat in a separate bowl combine the following ingredients.

Egg yolks 8 each
whole eggs 4 each
Cornstarch 6 ounces
sugar 8 ounces
grated orange zest 1/2 ounce, or from 2 oranges

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together
Add the egg yolks and whole eggs together.
Combine eggs and sugar/starch together using whisk mix until smooth.

Temper the eggs/sugar with some of the hot sugar/water mix.

Return the egg/starch mix to the pot with the remaining sugar/ water.

With a wisk stir the entire mixture over medium heat until it starts to bubble and thicken.

Remove from the stove, add in 4 ounces of soft butter and 8 ounces of a strong orange juice (blood oranges if you can find them) if you're using orange juice reduce 12-14 ounce to 8 ounce volume.

Generally the mix is poured into a 10 inch fluted pie shell which has been previously baked.

This is called blind baking, pin out pie dough, place in pie pan crumble up a piece of parchment paper, unfold it in the pie shell and fill with beans to prevent it from rising up. Bake at moderate heat 350 or so. and then cool

If your orange juice is weak you can always add in some orange extract, but reducing the volume down results in a better product.

If you half the recipe, you'll end up with a generous 10 inch pie.

Thanks for the comments folks. Answered my question perfectly.