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Economical Lemon Pie
1 lemon, juice and grated yellow part of the rind 1/2 cup, less 1 tablespoon, flour 1 1/2 cups boiling water 1 cup sugar 1 egg A few grains salt Mix the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir into it the lemon juice, lemon rind, and beaten egg. Then stir the hot water into this mixture, and cook till thickened. Allow to cool, then pour into a pie tin lined with paste. Cover with a top crust, and bake in a quick oven till the crust is cooked.
A flour-thickened lemon filling cooked on the stove, then baked between two crusts rather than topped with meringue. The economy is in the single egg and the absence of butter.
- "1/2 cup, less 1 tablespoon, flour"That is 7 tablespoons, a little under 1/2 cup. Measure by spooning flour into the cup and levelling it rather than scooping, or the filling turns pasty.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-450F. The filling is already cooked, so the only job is the pastry: figure on something like 25 to 30 minutes, until the top crust is browned and the bottom is set, which is all the original asks for.
- Cook the filling gentlyFlour scorches easily over direct heat. Use a heavy pan on medium-low, or a double boiler, and stir constantly until it is thick enough to coat the spoon heavily, about 5 to 8 minutes. Flour-thickened fillings need a full minute of bubbling to lose their raw taste.
- Temper the eggThe beaten egg goes into the cold flour-sugar mixture before the boiling water, which is what keeps it from scrambling. Add the hot water in a thin stream while whisking.
- Cool it completelyWarm filling melts the fat in the bottom crust and produces a soggy base. Chill the filling until it is at room temperature or cooler before assembling.
- Vent the topThe recipe says only "cover with a top crust." Cut a few slits or prick the lid, or trapped steam will lift it and force filling out at the rim. Seal and crimp the edges well.
- Zest, not pith"Grated yellow part of the rind" means the outer layer only. Modern lemons are often waxed; scrub under hot water first.
- YieldThe recipe gives no tin size. The filling comes to roughly three cups, enough for one 8- or 9-inch double-crust pie.
Lemon pies of this kind were the frugal cousin of the meringue version familiar from modern bakery cases. Where a lemon meringue pie calls for several yolks, butter, and cornstarch, this one leans on flour and boiling water and spends a single egg, which is the sort of arithmetic that earned a recipe the word "economical." Double-crust lemon pies also belong to an older repertoire, alongside the meringue-topped kind. Flour was a common pie thickener in nineteenth-century American kitchens and gradually gave way to cornstarch, which sets clearer and tastes less floury.