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Cocoanut Custard Pie
3 eggs, separated 1/2 cup sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1/2 cup Dromedary Cocoanut 3 cups milk, scalded Crab apple jelly Pie crust Beat yolks of eggs with sugar and salt; add whites of eggs stiffly beaten, cocoanut and milk. Bake in a deep pie plate with under crust only. When cool, spread with jelly and sprinkle with cocoanut.
A loose-set baked custard lightened with beaten whites and finished cold with a glaze of tart jelly. The whole thing turns on baking it gently enough that the custard sets without breaking.
- The hinge: gentle heatAn egg custard that goes much above roughly 180F curdles and weeps. The original gives no oven temperature; bake in a moderate oven, around 325F, until the outer two inches are firm and the centre still trembles.
- Blind bake the shellThree cups of liquid custard in a raw bottom crust is the classic recipe for a sodden base. Line the shell, fill with weights, bake at 400F for 15 minutes, remove the weights and give it another 5 minutes before filling.
- Temper the milk"Scalded" means heated to just below the boil, about 180F, when the surface shivers and a ring of bubbles forms at the edge. Let it cool a few minutes and pour it into the egg mixture in a thin stream while whisking, or the yolks will set into threads.
- A thin custard by modern standardsThree eggs to three cups of milk is a very soft set that will slice only when thoroughly chilled, if at all. A deep 9-inch plate gives a firmer wedge; the folded-in whites may separate out as a pale foam layer as it bakes.
- SaltThe quantity given is unclear in the original. A quarter teaspoon is the right proportion for three cups of milk.
- The coconutDromedary sold shredded coconut in tins and packets; modern supermarket shredded coconut is the closest stand-in, though whether the Dromedary product was sweetened is not established. Unsweetened desiccated coconut will work but drinks up custard and tastes noticeably drier.
- Crab apple jellyTart and rosy against the pale custard. Warm it briefly so it spreads without tearing the surface, and glaze only once the pie is fully cold. Redcurrant jelly is the nearest substitute.
- YieldOne deep 9-inch pie, six to eight servings. Keep it refrigerated and eat within two days.
Dromedary was the brand name of the Hills Brothers Company of New York, best known for packaged dates and for shredded coconut sold in tins and moisture-proof packets. Booklets like this one were advertising: they gave cooks a reason to keep the product on the shelf year round rather than only at Christmas. The pie itself is a plain baked custard of a kind long familiar in American cookery, distinguished here by the coconut folded through it and by the jelly glaze, which does the work that a meringue or whipped cream would do in other versions. The novelty, in other words, is the packaged coconut, not the custard.