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Cocoanut Prune Pie
1 lb. prunes 1 cup Dromedary Cocoanut ¾ cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Pie crust Wash and cook prunes until soft; stone and rub them through a sieve; add cocoanut, sugar and lemon juice. Mix and turn into a pastry-lined pie plate, cover with pastry and bake in a hot oven. Sprinkle with cocoanut and serve hot or cold.
A two-crust pie of sieved prune pulp sweetened and lightened with shredded coconut. The original assumes you know your pastry and your oven; here is what it leaves unsaid.
- Sugar quantityThe sugar is printed as "34 cup," which is not a usable amount; the intended figure is most likely 3/4 cup. Taste the prune pulp before committing, since dried prunes vary a great deal in sweetness.
- "Hot oven"A hot oven in this period is usually reckoned somewhere around 400-450F. Start the pie at 425F for about 15 minutes to set the bottom crust, then drop to 375F for another 25-30 minutes until the top is well browned.
- Dromedary CocoanutShredded coconut sold in packets by the Hills Brothers Company, whose brand this booklet promotes. Any shredded coconut works; if you use unsweetened, expect to want the full 3/4 cup of sugar.
- Cooking the prunesThe recipe's prunes still have their stones. Modern pitted prunes are generally softer than older, drier dried fruit and need only a short simmer in water to cover, 15-20 minutes, until they collapse. Drain but keep the liquid hspadable, not stiff, and a spoonful or two of the cooking water fixes it if it dries out.
- SievingRubbing through a sieve removes skins and gives the smooth filling the recipe intends. A food mill does the same work faster; a blender or processor will not, because it purees the skins back in.
- Venting the top crustThe filling is dense and holds steam. Cut vents or slash the lid before baking, or the top will lift away from the filling.
- The finishing coconutSprinkle it on in the last five minutes of baking rather than at the start, or scatter it over the hot pie as it comes out. Coconut added early to a hot oven scorches.
- YieldFills one 9-inch pie plate; six to eight servings. Best the day it is baked, as the crust softens against the moist filling overnight.
This comes from a promotional pamphlet issued by Hills Brothers, the New York firm whose Dromedary brand put packaged shredded coconut and pitted dates into American pantries in the early twentieth century. Recipe booklets of this kind existed to demonstrate that a single branded ingredient could be worked into everything a household already cooked ats it is pressed into partnership with fruits it has no traditional connection to. Prunes were a natural companion for a pamphlet writer: cheap, shelf-stable, sold in bulk, and heavily promoted in their own right by California growers during the same decades. The coconut here does double duty, adding sweetness and absorbing moisture from the prune pulp so the filling sets without eggs, flour, or cornstarch.