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APPLE-BUTTER CUSTARD PIE
Beat together four eggs, one tea-cup applebutter, one of sugar, one level table-spoon allspice, add one quart sweet milk and pinch of salt; bake in three pies with an under-crust;-and, by the way; never omit a pinch of salt in custard and lemon pie; and, in fact, many kinds of fruit pies, such as green-apple, currant, gooseberry, and pie-plant, are improved by it.
A thin, spiced baked custard stretched over three shells — generous for a farm table, lean by modern standards. The proportions and the oven are where this needs attention.
- The hinge: bake it low and pull it earlyEgg custard sets at about 170-175F and curdles above 185F. Bake at 325-350F and take the pies out when the outer inch is set but the centre still wobbles; it firms as it cools. A thermometer in the custard is worth more than a clock here.
- Teacup measureA teacup in nineteenth-century American cookbooks is generally reckoned smaller than a modern cup, often around six ounces, though the usage was never standardised. Read the apple butter and sugar as roughly three-quarters cup each -- and if your apple butter is already sweetened, cut the sugar back or the filling will be cloying.
- Four eggs to a quart is thinModern baked custard generally runs three or four eggs to a pint of milk. Spread across three shells this filling will be shallow and soft; baking the quantity given in two shells rather than three gives more depth, and adding eggs gives a firmer set. A quart of milk is more than a single 9-inch shell will hold.
- One tablespoon of allspiceThat is a very heavy hand by current taste. With freshly ground allspice, a teaspoon or two is plenty for a quart of milk.
- Sweet milkSimply means fresh milk rather than soured or buttermilk. Whole milk is the right substitute; skim gives a watery set.
- The undercrustWith a wet filling and a low oven, an unbaked shell goes pale and soggy. Blind-bake the crust until dry and just colouring, then pour in the custard while the shell is still warm.
- Strain and skimApple butter and beaten egg both bring lumps and foam. Pass the mixture through a sieve and skim the surface before filling, or the baked top will be pocked with bubbles.
- Pie-plantIn the closing aside, pie-plant is rhubarb. Use the stalks only; the leaves are not edible.
- Serving and keepingThree shallow pies, six slices each. Egg-and-milk pies must be refrigerated once cool and eaten within three or four days.
Apple butter was a byproduct of abundance: Ohio and Pennsylvania households boiled down cider with quartered apples for hours in a copper kettle, stirring constantly, to concentrate a whole harvest into something that kept through winter. Buckeye Cookery, compiled in Marysville, Ohio in the 1870s, sits squarely in that country, and a cook with a crock of apple butter in the cellar would naturally reach for it to flavour and thicken a custard rather than buy spices or fresh fruit out of season. The book was assembled from contributors' recipes, which may explain why this one drifts mid-sentence into a general lecture on salt in pastry. That aside is sound: salt sharpens the perception of sweetness and cuts the flat, eggy note of a plain custard.