Peanut Butter Meringue Pie or A Reason to Follow Directions

So one thing I should say about directions is that I like to improvise. If I recognize certain techniques (or think I do), I just go the route I think best or substitute items, etc.

This time, I really just should have listened.

To make the base for Peanut Butter Meringue Pie, I needed....

- 3 egg yolks
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup peanut butter

In short, I figured I could follow the recipe like you do for ice cream. So instead of whipping the yolk with the sugar and corn starch and adding COLD milk and peanut, I added HEATED milk with the peanut butter already blended in.

I did this because I figured it was just like making ice cream. According to the recipe, after I was to add the cold milk and peanut butter, I had to heat it up in a double boiler. Ice cream also uses a double boiler AFTER you heat up the milk...but the purpose is to get rid of the extra water so that it thickens. This recipe also talked about the pudding thickening in the double boiler as the peanut butter melted/blended. So it should work, right?

Unfortunately, what I failed to notice was that the milk only gets heated enough to melt the peanut butter. It never gets hot HOT!.

With further research (after I realized I screwed up), I found out that corn starch works best with cold liquids first and then getting warmer.

So, my friends, a great lesson learned. My "pudding" turned out to be more liquidy than desired. And, even though my meringue looked good. It appeared to be a Floating Island Pie.

Meringue on peanut butter liquid stuff

I then baked the pie for 12 minutes, hoping that a miracle would occur.

Although is looks beautiful and the refrigerator made the peanut butter stuff congeal a bit, it's still rather liquidy (although it tastes great).

We're thinking of putting it on some type of cake or brownie as a topping. :-)