Custard Pie
Line a deep, perforated pie tin with Plain or Rich Paste. For filling, beat three eggs slightly, add one-fourth cup sugar, one-eighth teaspoon salt, one-eighth teaspoon nutmeg, and pour over slowly two cups scalded milk, stirring constantly. Bake in a hot oven at first, to set the crust or rim, then reduce the heat afterwards; as this is a combination of eggs and milk it should be finished in a slow oven.
A plain baked custard pie, and the whole difficulty lies in the two temperatures the original asks for. Get the sequence right and the rest is arithmetic.
- The hinge: two oven temperaturesThe original gives no numbers, only "hot" then "slow." In modern terms, start hot, around 450F, for about 10 minutes to set the pastry rim, then drop to about 325F and finish for 25-35 minutes, judging by the custard rather than the clock. A custard held at high heat curdles and weeps; the drop is not optional.
- "Hot" and "slow" in numbersPeriod oven tables vary, but a hot oven is generally put at roughly 400-450F and a slow oven at roughly 250-325F. If your oven is slow to fall, prop the door for a minute after turning it down.
- Perforated pie tinA tin punched with holes in the base, sold to help bottom crusts cook through. A modern metal or glass pie plate works; blind-bake the shell 10 minutes with weights before filling to get the same effect.
- Scalded milkHeat to just below a boil, around 180F, until it steams and shows bubbles at the edge. Originally done to kill souring organisms in raw milk; it still helps, since warm milk sets the custard faster and shortens the time in the oven.
- Tempering"Pour over slowly, stirring constantly" is the instruction that keeps the eggs from scrambling. Add the hot milk in a thin stream, and strain the mixture into the shell to catch any threads of set white.
- When it is doneThe centre should still wobble as a unit when the pan is nudged; an instant-read thermometer near the middle reads 170-175F. Carryover heat finishes it. A custard baked until the centre is firm will have split and leaked by the time it cools.
- NutmegAn eighth of a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg is a whisper. Grate it over the surface once the pie is filled if you want the top freckled in the traditional way.
- YieldThree eggs and two cups of milk fill one 9-inch shell and serve six. Cool completely before cutting, then refrigerate; an egg-and-milk pie should not sit out for hours.
Baked custard in pastry is one of the oldest sweet pies in English cookery, descended from the medieval "custarde" or "crustade" - a name that derived from the crust rather than the filling. The instruction here is almost entirely about heat rather than ingredients: the recipe assumes anyone can beat three eggs, while managing a coal or early gas range from hot down to slow was the harder part.