Ma’s Lemon Sponge Pie

It’s holiday time. Who is making Ma’s Lemon Sponge Pie? My husband’s grandmother, Frances Leahey, brought home this recipephany from a cooking class sponsored by the Western Massachusetts Electric Company and its live-wire mascot Reddy Kilowatt in the 1940s. She had just bought an electric oven, and the class was, according to Reddy, to help “our electric customers to make the very best possible use of the electricity they buy.” There is no better use of electricity than this pie. At first, Ma thought this recipe was the case of a lemon meringue pie gone awry, where the teacher mistakenly folded the egg whites in with the filling instead of spreading them on top.…