Lemon Pie
Three eggs Three-fourths of a cup of sugar Four tablespoons of Larkin Corn Starch Juice and rind of one large lemon or two small lemons One pint of water Mois- Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar, ten the Corn Starch in a portion of the water. Boil
The text as printed is scrambled — the line "Mois-" belongs with "ten the Corn Starch," and the method breaks off mid-sentence at "Boil." What survives is a standard cornstarch lemon filling for a pre-baked shell, and the omitted steps are recoverable from the proportions.
- The hinge: the starch must actually boilA cornstarch custard has to reach a full boil and hold it about a minute. Below that the granules never fully swell and the filling sets soft, and egg yolk contains an enzyme that thins starch unless heat destroys it.
- Reading the broken methodSlake the cornstarch in a little of the cold water, bring the rest of the pint to a boil, stir in the slurry and cook until thick and clear. Temper the sugared yolks with some of the hot mixture, return it to the pan, cook a minute more, then take it off the heat and add lemon juice and rind.
- Lemon goes in lastAcid degrades cooked starch, so the juice belongs off the heat, after thickening. Adding it at the start gives a filling that loosens as it stands.
- Rind means zestGrate only the yellow outer layer; the white pith underneath is bitter. One large lemon yields roughly a tablespoon of zest and three of juice.
- The whitesThe recipe calls for three eggs but uses only the yolks, and the surviving text breaks off, so the whites were most likely meant for a meringue: beaten with about six tablespoons of sugar, spread to the crust edge, and browned at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes. Use a fully blind-baked shell.
- MeasuresA pint is two cups. Four tablespoons of cornstarch is a quarter cup, a firm set for two cups of liquid — this is meant to slice cleanly rather than pour.
- YieldAn 8- or 9-inch pie, six to eight modest servings. Chill at least three hours before cutting; a warm cornstarch pie slumps.
- Larkin Corn StarchA house brand, interchangeable with any modern cornstarch by volume. In Britain, cornflour is the same product; American corn flour is milled whole grain and will not thicken this way.
Good Things to Eat was issued by the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, a soap manufacturer that grew into a vast mail-order house selling groceries, extracts and household goods direct to customers through club orders and catalog premiums. Books like this one existed to put Larkin's own brand names — here the cornstarch — into the middle of the instructions, which is why the ingredient is capitalized like a proper noun. The recipe itself is the American cornstarch lemon pie that became common once cheap refined cornstarch was a pantry staple in the later nineteenth century: it stretched three eggs and one lemon into a full pie, which is precisely the arithmetic a company cookbook wanted to demonstrate.