Pumpkin Pie
Stew the pumpkin, simmering it down to evaporate all possible moisture. Mash through a colander. To each cup of pumpkin allow three-fourths of a cup of rich milk, one egg, one teaspoon of Larkin Cinnamon, one-half teaspoon of Larkin Cloves, one teaspoon of Larkin Ginger. Bake in deep pie plate lined with crust. One-half teaspoon of Larkin Lemon Flavoring Extract may also be used.
A plain spice-custard formula given as a ratio rather than a fixed quantity, which makes it easy to scale to whatever your pumpkin yields. Two things need flagging before you start: there is no sugar in the list, and there is no oven temperature.
- The missing sugarAs printed, the filling is unsweetened. Period pumpkin pies were generally sweetened with sugar, molasses or maple syrup, and the omission here may be a slip or an assumption that the cook knew better. Sweetening rates in comparable recipes vary widely; somewhere in the region of a third to half a cup of sugar per cup of cooked pumpkin, plus a pinch of salt, would not be out of place.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Custard pies of this type are usually started hot to set the crust, around 425F for 15 minutes, then finished at 350F for 35 to 45 minutes until the centre is just short of firm.
- Cooking down the pumpkinThis is the hinge of the recipe. Watery pumpkin gives a filling that weeps and a soggy base, so stew and stir it until it mounds on the spoon rather than slumping. Field pumpkins are far wetter than winter squash and need the longest reduction.
- Canned pumpkinSolid-pack canned pumpkin is already reduced and sieved and can replace the stewed, colander-mashed pumpkin cup for cup. Avoid pie filling, which is pre-sweetened and pre-spiced.
- "Rich milk"Milk with the cream not removed, roughly the equivalent of whole milk with a splash of cream. Half-and-half can be used instead for a richer filling.
- Larkin spicesHouse-brand ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger sold by mail order. Use any ground spice; the ratio here is heavy on ginger and cloves by modern taste, so cut the cloves if you prefer a milder pie.
- Lemon flavoring extractLemon and similar flavourings do turn up in period pumpkin pie recipes, and the optional half teaspoon here would lift a flat-tasting custard. Lemon extract is still sold, though a little grated zest does the same work.
- Quantity and yieldThree cups of prepared pumpkin, with 2 1/4 cups milk and 3 eggs, comes to roughly six cups of filling, which is more than a single 9-inch deep shell will take; scale down, or expect to fill two. The shell is bottom crust only, unbaked, and benefits from being chilled while the filling is mixed.
Pumpkin baked in a crust is one of the oldest American sweets in continuous use, descending from English custard and "pompion" pies and long since fixed to the New England Thanksgiving table. What dates this version is not the pie but the shopping list: three of its ingredients are named by brand, and the brand is Larkin, the Buffalo soap company that built an enormous mail-order trade by bundling household premiums, including a line of spices and flavoring extracts, with its orders. Recipes of this sort circulated as much to keep the tins moving as to teach cooking, which may also explain why the spices are measured to the half teaspoon while the sugar was left out altogether.