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Lemon Pie with a Crust
One coffee cup sugar, (white,) one cup hot water, one tablespoon corn starch, one tablespoon butter, the rind and juice of one lemon; cook for a few moments, then add one well beaten egg, a little salt, fill pie and bake. This is to be made with an upper crust.
A thin, old-fashioned boiled lemon filling sealed under a top crust rather than crowned with meringue. The filling is small by modern standards, so the pan size matters more than usual.
- Coffee cupCup measures of the period were not standardised. A coffee cup was usually reckoned at about a cup, and larger than a teacup, though usage varied from household to household. Reading it as 1 cup sugar to the 1 cup hot water gives a filling that behaves as intended.
- Pan size and yieldThe made filling is a little over two cups, which gives only a shallow layer in an 8-inch plate and a thinner one still in a 9-inch. Use a shallow 8-inch pie plate, or increase the filling for a standard 9-inch double crust.
- Corn starchOne tablespoon in a cup of liquid gives a soft, spoonable set, not a sliceable one. Slake it in a little cold water first, then stir into the hot water, or it will lump.
- The egg is the hingeAdd it off the heat, and temper it: stir a few spoonfuls of the hot starch mixture into the beaten egg before returning it to the pan. Dropped in straight it scrambles and the filling turns grainy.
- Rind"Rind" here means the yellow zest only, grated fine. The white pith underneath is bitter, and a whole lemon's worth of it will show in so small a filling.
- OvenThe recipe says only 'bake' and gives no oven description. As a working modern approach, start hot, around 425F for 15 minutes to set the bottom crust, then drop to 375F for a further 20 to 25 minutes until the top is well coloured.
- Vent the topThe recipe specifies an upper crust, and a sealed lid over a wet filling will lift and split. Cut steam slits and crimp the edges firmly.
- ServingCool at least two hours. Warm, a starch-and-egg filling this loose will run out of the cut.
Before meringue became the default finish, lemon pie was commonly built like any fruit pie, with a lid of pastry over a cooked filling, and the two forms coexisted in American cookbooks through the second half of the 1800s. The filling itself belongs to a family of "mock" or economical lemon pies thickened with corn starch and stretched with water rather than built on a raft of egg yolks and cream, which is why a single egg does the work here. Corn starch, commercially available in the United States from the mid-19th century, made exactly this kind of cheap, reliable custard possible in households where eggs were counted.