Ann Murdock
HEAVENLY
LEMON PIE
That never fails!
Grated rind and juice of two lemons A cup and a half of water 2 cups of sugar 4 eggs Beat the yolks in a deep saucepan and add the other ingredients. Stir all together and add two tablespoons of corn starch smoothed in a very little water to a paste.
The book has set the line "Cook slowly until thick, stirring" above the title rather than at the end, where it belongs. Read the method as: beat, combine, thicken with cornstarch, then cook slowly until thick, stirring.
- Read the instructions in the right orderThe stray first line is the final step. Everything goes into the pan cold, then the mixture is cooked gently, with constant stirring, until it thickens and the starch loses its raw taste — a minute or two at a bare simmer once it has come together.
- It is a filling, not a whole pieNo crust and no baking are given. The quantity is roughly enough for a 9-inch shell, which should be fully blind-baked before the filling goes in.
- The four whitesThe recipe lists four eggs but uses only the yolks, leaving the whites over; the obvious use for them in a lemon pie of this date is a meringue, beaten stiff with roughly a quarter cup of sugar, spread to the crust edge and browned in a hot oven. The book gives no oven instruction; around 400F for 8 to 10 minutes will do it.
- The starch is on the light sideTwo tablespoons of cornstarch for a cup and a half of water plus the juice of two lemons makes a soft set, carried partly by the four yolks. If you want clean slices rather than a spoonable filling, you will need more starch than the recipe gives.
- Do not let it boil hardCornstarch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully, but yolks curdle and acid weakens starch with prolonged heat. Bring it just to the first slow bubbles, hold there briefly while stirring, then take it off.
- Very sweet by current tasteTwo cups of sugar against two lemons is characteristic of the period. A cup and a half is closer to modern balance, though cutting the sugar will change the texture somewhat.
- Grate before you juiceTake the zest off the lemons while they are whole and firm; a squeezed half is awkward to grate. Avoid the white pith, which is bitter.
Celebrated Actor Folks' Cookeries gathered dishes contributed by stage performers of the mid-1910s, and Ann Murdock — then a young leading lady in Broadway comedies and soon to appear in silent films — was exactly the sort of name it traded on. The recipe's appeal is the boast in its subtitle: "That never fails!" Cornstarch had become a pantry staple in American homes over the second half of the nineteenth century. The lemon meringue pie itself is generally traced to Philadelphia cookery teacher Elizabeth Goodfellow in the early 1800s, though that attribution is traditional rather than firmly documented; and by 1916 it appears to have been standard enough that a contributor could give the filling alone and assume any reader knew what to do with the crust and the leftover whites.