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Apple Custard Pie
Stew six large mealy apples, sweeten and flavor to taste. Take three eggs and separate the whites and yolks. Beat the yolks until light and add to the cooked apples. Then beat the whole mixture, which should become very light. Line some pie tins with paste, pour in the mixture and set in the oven to bake. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth with sugar, flavor with vanilla or lemon.
When the pie is baked, take it from the oven, spread the meringue on the top, and put back in the oven for a few moments until set and slightly browned. -Emelia Cowell.
A thin, reader-contributed recipe that assumes you already know how to run a pie: quantities are left to taste and the oven is never named. The points below fill in the gaps.
- What "custard" means hereThere is no milk or cream in the filling. The apple puree is set by three egg yolks alone, so it bakes to something between an applesauce pie and a souffle rather than a true baked custard.
- Mealy applesMealy means a low-moisture, soft-cooking apple that breaks down to puree without stirring — a Cortland, McIntosh, Golden Delicious or Bramley. A firm Granny Smith or Honeycrisp will hold its shape and give you chunks instead of a smooth base.
- Quantities to work fromSix large apples stewed down yield roughly 3 cups of puree, enough for one 9-inch pie, or the two shallower tins the recipe's plural implies. Figure 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar in the apples depending on their acidity, plus a good pinch of salt and cinnamon, nutmeg or lemon zest for the flavoring.
- Cook the apples down dryThe hinge of the recipe. Stew the apples uncovered until the puree mounds on a spoon and no water weeps out, then let it cool to lukewarm before the yolks go in, or they will scramble. A wet filling will soak the pastry and never set.
- The shellA raw-lined tin with a wet filling gives a pale, damp bottom crust. Blind-bake the shell at 400F for about 15 minutes with weights, then remove them and let it dry out a few minutes before filling.
- Oven and timingThe book gives none. Bake the filled pie at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes, until the center is set with only a slight wobble; the beaten mixture puffs, then settles as it cools.
- The meringueAllow 2 tablespoons sugar per egg white, beaten to stiff, glossy peaks. Spread it so it touches the crust all the way round — that seal is what keeps it from shrinking into an island.
- "A few moments" is not enoughBake the meringue at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes rather than browning it in a flash of high heat. The interior of a quickly browned meringue stays raw and beads liquid onto the filling as it stands.
- ServingCool at least two hours before cutting; meringue pies slice cleanly only when fully cold, and this filling firms considerably as it drops to room temperature.
The signature at the end is the tell: this is a reader's recipe, of the kind nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookbooks assembled from contributions sent in by subscribers, with each one credited to its sender. The dish itself belongs to a large American family of "custard" apple pies, in which stewed apple is bound with eggs rather than piled in raw under a top crust, and the separated whites, whipped with sugar and put back on top, use up the rest of the egg. Old cookbooks often name apples for such pies by behavior -- mealy, juicy, firm -- rather than by variety.