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Custard Pie (For a large pie take three)
For a large pie, take three eggs, one pint of milk, half cup sugar, and flavor. The crust for custard pies may be baked (not too hard) before putting in the custard; prick it before putting it in oven to prevent blistering. This prevents it from becoming soggy.-Mrs. N. S. Long.
A bare-bones custard formula that assumes you already know how to handle pastry and a slow oven. The ratio is the recipe: three eggs to a pint of milk to half a cup of sugar.
- Quantities in modern termsOne pint is 2 cups of milk; half a cup of sugar is about 3.5 oz. Three whole eggs to 2 cups of dairy is a soft, spoonable set — firm enough to slice, but only just. An extra yolk gives a sturdier custard if you want clean wedges.
- "Flavor" means nutmeg"Flavor" left unspecified -- Nutmeg was the commonest flavouring for a plain custard in books of this period, grated over the surface before baking, though "flavor" could equally mean a spoonful of vanilla or rosewater stirred into the milk; the recipe does not say which. A pinch of salt, which the original omits, is worth adding.
- Blind baking is the point of the recipeBeyond the ratio, Mrs. Long's contribution is the pre-baked shell, and it works. Line the pan, chill the pastry, prick it as directed or line it with weights, and bake at 400F for 15 to 18 minutes until dry and pale gold — "not too hard," since it goes back into the oven with the filling.
- Seal the shellBrush the hot blind-baked crust with a little beaten egg white and return it to the oven for a minute. This glazes over the fork holes so the liquid custard is less likely to seep in — an extra safeguard alongside the pre-baking the recipe itself relies on.
- Oven temperatureBake the filled pie at 325 to 350F. Higher than that and the eggs curdle and weep at the rim before the center sets. Pouring the milk in warm, not cold, shortens the time in the oven and reduces the risk.
- Judging donenessForty to fifty minutes; pull it when the outer two inches are set and the center still wobbles as a single mass, not in ripples. A knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean. Carryover heat finishes the middle, and a fully firm center in the oven means an overcooked, watery pie once cool.
- Yield and servingA "large pie" is a 9-inch shell, six to eight servings. Cool completely before cutting and refrigerate any that keeps — an egg-and-milk custard is not a pie to leave out overnight.
Custard pie descends from the medieval crustade, a pastry coffin filled with sweetened eggs and cream and baked until set. By the time Buckeye Cookery appeared in 1877 it was the plainest and cheapest of the household pies: three eggs, milk from that morning, sugar, and a scrape of nutmeg, requiring no fruit and no season. The recurring problem, then as now, was the soggy bottom, since raw pastry filled with cold liquid steams from below rather than crisps he the the contributed tip that is really the substance of this entry. The book's habit of crediting individual women, Mrs. N. S. Long among hundreds of others, reflects its origin as a compilation by Estelle Woods Wilcox, of Marysville, Ohio, drawing on contributions from many named women, in which reputations rested on exactly this kind of practical fix.