Gluten Free Lemon & Raspberry Meringue Pie

This gluten free lemon & raspberry meringue pie recipe is the best and only gluten free pie recipe you will ever need. It’s SO good, and so much easier to make when you buy a premade pie crust like I do! I fill my store-bought gluten free crust with velvety smooth homemade lemon curd, and the brightest raspberry sauce swirled into tufts of pilloy meringue. It’s truly a perfect dessert.

There are a few main components of the lemon & raspberry meringue pie recipe: the crust, the lemon curd, the raspberry sauce, and the meringue. While the crust is store bought, you can, of course, find a gluten free pie crust recipe. Everything else, however, can be made by following this recipe!

The Lemon Curd

This lemon curd recipe might possibly be the easiest lemon curd recipe that ever existed. It’s incredibly simple compared to other lemon curd recipes, and probably ten times easier to get right.

Lemon Curd Ingredients

The ingredients to the lemon curd and probably similar to what you would expect:

The juice of 2 lemons (about a half cup), the zest of two lemons (about 2-3 tbsp), 1/2 cup of sugar, 3 eggs, and 3/4 of a stick of butter.

Lemon Curd Directions and Tips

You might be wondering why I claimed this recipe as the “easiest lemon curd recipe.” Well, this is why: it only uses whole eggs, so there isn’t any need for throwing away egg whites or stressing about breaking a yolk, AND it’s made directly in the saucepan, not in a double boiler.

The first step is to mix every ingredient but the butter together with a whisk, in a saucepan over medium heat until well combined. Once that begins to thicken, add the butter, 1/2 tbsp at a time, and whisk until completely melted, repeat until all butter is gone.

MY TIPS for the lemon curd:

1. NEVER stop whisking the lemon curd while it is heating up on the stove in the saucepan. Not whisking can cause to burning or curdling of the lemon curd.

The Raspberry Sauce

Essentially, the raspberry sauce in this pie is just a raspberry coulis, but a tiny bit thicker than usual. It’s so simple to make and can be whipped up within 15 minutes!

The Raspberry Sauce Ingredients

For the sauce for the whole recipe, you’ll need 2 cups frozen raspberries, 1/4 cup water, and 1/4 cup chambord liqueur, and 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp water. The reason why I use frozen raspberries is because they are SO much cheaper, and can be easy to find.

The Raspberry Sauce Directions and Tips

In a small saucepan, all you need to do is add the raspberries and the 1/2 cup of water + liqueur. Turn the heat up to medium high, and cover for about 5 ish minutes.

When you remove the lid from the saucepan, the raspberries should be cooked down and the liquid mixture should be lightly boiling. If the boil is too vigorous, turn the heat down slightly and stir with a spatula.

Once gently boiling, add the cornstarch and water mixture and mix quickly to ensure no gross clumps of cornstarch form. Trust me, they are gross.

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After it has cooled, remove about 1/4 cup of the raspberry sauce and pass it through a sieve or small strainer to remove the seeds.

MY TIPS for the raspberry sauce:

1. If you don’t feel comfortable cooking with alcohol, you can replace the Chambord for 1/4 cup water and 1 tbsp of sugar. The end result will work the same exact way! All of the alcohol in the original recipe cooks out of the raspberry sauce, however.
2. To make sure no cornstarch clumps form, you can switch from a spatula to a whisk when it is time to add the slurry mixture.

The Meringue

This meringue recipe can look daunting, but by following the recipe step by step, I can almost promise your end result will be amazing! This specific meringue recipe is hard to mess up!

The Meringue Ingredients

The recipe uses 6 ingredients: egg whites, water, sugar, cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla extract. In terms of quantity, you’ll need 4 egg whites, 1 1/3 cup of sugar, 2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar, and 1/4 cup water.

The Meringue Directions and Tips

First, separate your egg whites and add them into the bowl of a stand mixer with the salt and cream of tartar. whisk on a low to medium speed until medium peaks form, then add 1/3 cup of sugar and continue whisking until medium peaks form.

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While the meringue is whisking away electronically, it’s time to make the sugar mixture that will cook the eggs as it is whisked in later. Add the rest of the water and sugar to a saucepan and stir on high heat until dissolved and clear. Once clear, DO NOT stir the mixture!! Use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature of the boiling sugar mixture.

When it reaches 235 fahrenheit, drizzle it into the stand mixer while it runs on low medium speed.

After all the sugar mixture has been added to the meringue, let the mixer run on high speed for around 5-7 minutes, or until the bowl of the mixer is warm, NOT HOT, to the touch.

MY TIPS for the meringue:

1. separating eggs can be a bit of a nightmare. One tiny drop of egg yolk can completely ruin your meringue. OR so you thought. Obviously you still have to be careful, but read this angel food cake recipe I wrote for more information about saving you egg whites from yolk. Spoiler alert, sometimes it isn’t the end of the world.

1. Making sure the eggs are cooked can be scary. No one wants to eat raw eggs, but I’m here to lay your worry to rest. The boiling sugar mixture actually cooks the eggs when it is whisked into the meringue! To make sure the meringue os fully cooked and done whisking, make sure you can hold the bottom of the bowl without it being too hot for an extended amount of time.
2. Don’t stir the sugar while it is boiling! This can cause it to crystalize, and then it won’t be of any use for the recipe. You’d have to start over.

Assembling the Pie (+ the shell)

This is the easy (and fun) part of the recipe!!

First, blind bake your pie shell according to the directions on the packaging. I recommend filling your crust with pie weights and lining it with parchment while baking to ensure it doesn’t puff up.

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First, add the lemon curd, then layer the unstrained raspberry sauce on top

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Before adding the raspberry layer, freeze the pie for 15 minutes to solidify the curd so the raspberry layer spreads evenly.

This is where it gets complicated (however, this part is optional). Use a paintbrush to paint three lines of raspberry sauce into your piping bag. Then, fill the bag with meringue. It should look like this:

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Snip the top of your piping bag, and pipe little buds of meringue all around the pie.

Stick the pie into the broiler for around 1 minute, and remove and serve! Enjoy this gluten free lemon meringue pie recipe with a creative twist!!

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