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Maple Syrup Pie (No. 1)
1 cup maple syrup 1½ cups raisins 1 lemon (rind and juice) 2 tablespoons Five Roses flour Bake with one or two crusts
A four-line filling formula of the kind that assumed the cook already knew how pie was made. The instructions leave out the liquid, the pan size and the oven, so a few decisions have to be made before it goes together.
- The hinge: cook the filling firstRaisins will not soften and the flour will not thicken in the time the crust needs. Simmer the syrup, raisins, lemon juice and rind until the fruit is plump, then stir in the flour slaked with a little cold water and cook until it coats a spoon. Cool before filling the shell.
- Missing liquidNo water is specified, and a cup of syrup alone will not hydrate a cup and a half of raisins. Something in the order of half to three-quarters of a cup of water will be needed; the original leaves this to judgement rather than stating it.
- OvenNone is given. Starting hot to set the pastry, around 425F for 15 minutes, then finishing at 375F for a further 25 to 30 minutes until the crust colours, works for a double-crust fruit pie; these temperatures are a modern suggestion, not from the book.
- Five Roses flourA hard-wheat Canadian all-purpose flour milled by the book's publisher. Ordinary all-purpose flour is the direct substitute; two tablespoons is a modest thickener, appropriate only because the filling is precooked.
- Maple syrupAt the time this meant whatever the local sugar bush produced, likely darker and more strongly flavoured than today's Grade A Amber. A dark or very dark syrup gives a result closer to the original. Do not substitute pancake syrup, which is corn syrup and flavouring and will taste flatly sweet.
- The lemonRind and juice both go in, and they are doing real work against a cup of straight syrup. Grate only the zest, avoiding the white pith, and use the juice of a full lemon even if it seems like a lot.
- One crust or twoWith this much loose syrup a top crust or lattice is the better choice; it keeps the surface from scorching. If baking open-faced, use a fully blind-baked shell and expect a softer set.
- YieldEnough filling for one 8- or 9-inch pie, six to eight servings. Cool at least two hours before cutting or the slices will slump.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Winnipeg and Montreal, and was given away or sold cheaply to promote its flour; hundreds of thousands of copies went into Canadian kitchens in the 1910s and 1920s, which is why the brand name sits inside the ingredient list rather than on the cover alone. A maple syrup pie belongs to the sugar-bush country of Quebec and eastern Ontario, where maple was the cheap sweetener and cane sugar the imported one, and where the same syrup-and-flour idea produces tarte au sirop d'érable and the closely related sugar pie. The raisins here look like a household economy touch, bulking out a cup of syrup into a full pie, though that is a guess; and one might speculate that the "No. 1" numbering means the compilers had more than one version submitted, and that a dish so treated was already familiar to readers rather than being introduced to them u2014 but neither inference can be pressed.