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Apple Custard Pie
Peel sour apples and stew until soft, and there is not much water left in them. Then rub through a colander. Beat three eggs for each pie to be baked; and put in at the rate of one cup of butter and one of sugar for three pies. Season with nutmeg.
A skeletal recipe of the kind common in turn-of-the-century books, where the writer assumes you already know how to line a pie plate and judge a hot oven. The proportions are given per pie, so scale as needed.
- How much appleThe original never says, which is its real gap. Figure roughly 2 cups of thick, drained apple pulp per 9-inch pie; that is about 2 lb of apples before peeling and coring. Stew them dry enough that a spoon drawn through leaves a channel, or the filling will weep.
- "Sour apples"Tart cooking apples, not cider apples. Bramley, Granny Smith, Northern Spy or Rhode Island Greening all break down to a soft pulp and hold their acidity against the sugar and butter.
- Per-pie quantitiesThree eggs per pie, but the butter and sugar are given for three pies: that works out to a third of a cup each per pie. The butter is generous by modern standards and the filling will be rich and dense rather than light.
- Rub through a colanderA colander here means a sieve or food mill, used to catch skin and fibre and give a smooth purée. A food mill fitted with the medium plate does the same job in a minute; a blender makes it too slack.
- Custard without milkDespite the name, there is no dairy but butter. The set comes entirely from the eggs in the apple purée, so the result is closer to a baked apple curd than to a milk custard. Some versions of the dish add cream or milk, but this changes the texture and lengthens the bake.
- Crust and ovenThe original specifies neither crust nor oven heat; a pie of this kind would be built in an unbaked single bottom crust, here assumed to be a 9-inch plate. As a modern working guide, start at 425F for 12 to 15 minutes to set the pastry, then drop to 350F for 25 to 35 minutes.
- DonenessThe centre should still wobble slightly as one mass when the pie is nudged; it firms as it cools. Baked until the middle is stiff in the oven, the egg curdles and the filling turns grainy and weeps on standing.
- NutmegGrate it fresh. A quarter teaspoon per pie is enough to read against the apple; pre-ground nutmeg that has sat in a jar contributes little.
- YieldOne 9-inch pie serves six to eight. Serve at room temperature or cold, not hot from the oven.
Apple custard pie belongs to a large family of nineteenth-century American "transparent" and custard pies, in which eggs, sugar and butter are bound with fruit pulp, milk, molasses or vinegar and baked in a single crust. They were economical pies for households that had eggs and butter to hand. Stewing and sieving turned tired apples into something usable, and the eggs made the filling stretch. The instruction to use *sour* apples suggests a kitchen in which cooking apples were kept distinct from eating apples, though how far that can be pressed is uncertain.