The Most Important Ingredient of this Dessert is Time
MINNEAPOLIS — It took years for Rachel Swan to come around to her grandmother’s angel pie.
The dessert that flips lemon meringue pie on its head, literally, was Swan’s father’s favorite. But not hers. “I only have a memory of putting it in my mouth and spitting it out,” she said on a recent morning in her south Minneapolis shop, Pie & Mighty. It was a textural thing — the airy crunch of meringue isn’t for every kid. “But my dad loved it and it was like this special bond that he had with his mom.”
After her dad died in 2010, Swan inherited a copy of her Grandma Lu’s recipe, and after years of testing variations, she has managed to perfect — and fall in love with — angel pie. It’s become one of her bakery’s signature items.
Angel pie, which has a meringue base in place of a traditional crust, is a throwback recipe for a spring gathering, with the bonus that it’s gluten-free and features undulating waves of whipped egg whites along the edges.
And the best part? It’s not difficult. It takes only a short list of ingredients and a strong mixer. The hardest part is waiting for the meringue to harden in a closed oven (Day 1), and then for the assembled pie to set in the refrigerator (Day 2). However, deftness with a piping bag or a steady hand with an offset spatula are advantages, as sticky uncooked meringue can be a challenge, for some, to spread prettily on a pie plate.
