Home › Pastry and Puddings › Cream Pie
Cream Pie
Beat two eggs well, in a coffee-cup of sugar and one of thick sour Stir until thoroughly mixed. Add a teaspoonful of extract of lemon or vanilla. Bake with two crusts. This quantity will make two pies. cream.
The text has been scrambled in printing: the word "cream" from the end of the second line belongs after "thick sour," and the whole should read "Beat two eggs well, in a coffee-cup of sugar and one of thick sour cream." Read that way it is a plain baked sour-cream custard in a double crust.
- Coffee-cupA coffee cup in turn-of-the-century American books is about 1 cup, sometimes a little less; teacups are the smaller measure. So roughly 1 cup sugar to 1 cup sour cream, which is very sweet by modern taste.
- Thick sour creamThis means cream that has soured naturally and set, closer to today's crème fraîche or full-fat cultured sour cream than to the thin light versions. Do not substitute soured milk or a low-fat sour cream; the fat is what keeps the custard from weeping.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A custard pie of this kind wants a moderate oven, 350F, long enough for the filling to set with only a slight wobble at the centre. Higher heat curdles the eggs and the filling separates.
- Two crustsA fully enclosed custard is unusual now and needs vents cut in the top lid, or the steam will lift and split it. A single shell is easier to judge for doneness if you prefer it.
- No thickenerThere is no flour or cornstarch here, so two eggs are doing all the setting. Divided between two pies that is one egg per pie, giving a thin, soft, almost sauce-like filling rather than a sliceable custard.
- YieldAs written it makes two thinly filled pies. If you want one properly filled 9-inch pie, use the whole quantity in a single shell.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of lemon or vanilla extract is the only flavouring. Grated nutmeg over the surface often appears on cream pies of this era and is worth adding.
Sour cream pies belong to the thrift end of American baking, from a time when cream soured on its own in the pantry and was too valuable to discard. The type is often associated with Pennsylvania German and Midwestern farm kitchens, where it appears in several forms: plain like this one, or bulked out with raisins or dried apples. Its presence in a general household book reflects a period when commercial pasteurised cream was still uncommon in rural homes, so recipes that used up soured dairy earned their place alongside custards made with sweet cream.