Lemon-Lime Blackberry Italian Meringue Pie

That is what you see before you. And I made every bit of it from scratch, 'cept of course the blackberries. Those came from God. Ok, truthfully, so did the lemons, limes, cream, etc. But I put all the components together all by my lonesome.

 The "italian" part of the meringue was interesting. It involved whipping egg whites all by themselves until they had soft peaks. Then, taking a little break from that, you combined corn syrup, sugar and water and basically turned it into syrup. Stir over medium low heat until sugar dissolves, then boost heat up and heat without stirring until it reaches 238 degrees. Then you pour that boiling hot syrup into the egg whites while whipping them. It was supposed to make them glossy, but I find that the "non-Italian" way seems to get the glossy effect just fine.  This method actually created little hardened bits of candy on my mixer and a little in the meringue. I must have done something wrong.  It still tasted good, though!

The thing about this pie that means it was probably a one-time thing is that it literally took me all day to make.

There was the crust to make from scratch. The lemon-lime curd to make and chill for hours. The wine compote to make. The gelatin mixture to make, cream to whip, blackberries to soak in the compote. And the whole thing kept needing to be chilled and then chilled again. 

But in the end, it did look remarkably similar to the source. Which was Bon Appetit magazine. And it tasted delicious. It was served in a bowl, though, because with all the blackberry juice and compote juice, it turned into liquid right below that yummy yellow lemon-lime curd layer. 

There are some things you do just because you need to show yourself you can. This was one of those things. And it was delicious.