I learned from my mom, The Bat, who learned from her aunt (essentially her foster mother) that, when cooking or baking for a special occasion (holidays, birthdays, Tuesdays, etc.) one should always make enough for the surprise visitor. This rule is also useful if, like me, you have a little problem with depth perception and balance…
Even though the cookie sheet hit the floor, and one of the little pie pans was upended on it, splashing meringue and lemon filling all over the rug and on the wall beside the oven, I had (up until that moment) foolishly made a double batch of both filling and meringue, thinking I could also offer a few mini-pavlovas to be filled with some of the extra lemon curd, just in case.
But the case was, instead, one of reassuring myself that the pan and the best of its contents had not actually hit the floor to pick up cat hairs and whatever, refilling the crust with some of that extra curd, splooping on some meringue (and pretending I had not emitted a good, old-fashioned, monosyllabic word carried down from the days before the Saxons altered the way people spoke, in the British Isles), and popping the semi-restored unit into the oven to turn it golden brown.
The operation was messy, but the patient seems to have survived. Plus, my fitness tracker says I got a serious cardio workout…
I have no idea how well the crust held up through the process though, under all that fluff.
Maybe we'll find out tomorrow. Maybe we won't notice or care, because lemon meringue pie obliterates many bad thoughts, even if ends up more of a lemon meringue trifle.
Besides, the big one, so far, is neat and pretty! Cross your fingers it stays that way until dinner tomorrow.
So now my unwritten rule has been written: "Excess" will also be called a safety net. And there's still a bit of lemon curd in the fridge. Because reasons.
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