I put meringue on lemon meringue pie, but cream only on coconut and chocolate pies.
You really need to have a homemade pie crust, @aceplace57 .
Keylime is an icebox pie generally made with graham cracker crust. Whole different animal.
I’ll look for pie competitions at the fair or a Church bake sale.
They would use homemade crusts.
Samesies. Except for me, the worst crust is the wooden ones. I once ordered lemon meringue pie at a NJ diner and I thought they had left the cardboard on the pie.
My mom has very cold hands. She makes the best crusts. I have to chill mine.
I gave up Crisco when I moved to Europe - didn’t really have much of a choice. Switched to butter and this is what I do. I mix the dough a day before I’m going to bake it, so it gets a good rest in the fridge. I made 2 recipes, which gives me 3 pie crusts - I prefer thinner pie crusts. Two go in the freezer, and one gets baked the next day.
When I make apple pie, I put a crust on the bottom, but streusel for the top.
I want pie.
My mom would keep a large jar full of flour, salt, and cut-in lard in the pantry, so if she wanted to make a pie, a lot of the work was done. A few cupfuls in bowl with cold water, and she had a crust. She makes fabulous pies still.
When we were kids, if she made a pie for a dinner party, she’d use the scraps to make us kids little tarts filled with grape jelly. I have to try the cinnamon sugar version suggested above.
My mom humored my 6-year-old desire to bake, despite the mess I usually made. Her lard-based pie crusts were intoxicating and inspired me to “invent” tiny pie balls made by wrapping a single semi-sweet chocolate morsel in a little round of her pie crust and baking. Hot out of the oven the chocolate was molten and wonderful. It took hours to make a few dozen but she was relieved to have me sitting quietly working away without pestering her.
Yes, I love the crusts and will eat any left behind when clearing dishes (furtively, in the kitchen out of sight).
A good home-made pie crust makes all the difference. I once made a pumpkin pie (with a little pumpkin I grew myself), real whipped cream, and a home-made crust, and the family still talks about it today… My husband yearned for the pie crust scraps rolled up, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and baked, like his grandma made him 50 years ago. ( snails 
) I made him batches of dough and he tried, and tried but they never seemed to come out right. They either burned or they stayed gummy and underdone inside.
Wow, cultural-patrimony legislation is some weird shiz. I had no idea it was so legislatively and commercially crucial how you crimp a Cornish pasty.