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Almond Meringue Pie
1/4 cup shortening 1/4 cup sugar 2 egg yolks, beaten 3 tablespoons milk 1/2 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 2 egg whites, beaten stiff 3/4 cup sugar 1/3 cup almonds Cream shortening and sugar, add beaten egg yolks, then milk, dry ingredients sifted together and flavoring. Pour into greased pie pan (glass preferred). Spread stiffly beaten egg whites, mixed with sugar, over the cake mixture. Sprinkle with almonds, blanched and chopped, and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) for 40 minutes. Serves 6 people.
Orange Dressing for Baked Chicken (Very delicious and quite unusual) 2 oranges 4 canned peaches 6 stewed prunes 4 canned apricots 14 walnuts 4 cups soft bread crumbs 1 egg Separate orange pulp from membrane. Drain fruit well. Mix all fruit, whole walnut meats and bread crumbs lightly with fork. Beat egg and add. Stuff chicken with dressing and truss well.
Despite the name, this is a thin butter cake baked in a pie pan under a sugar-heavy meringue, so the whole thing goes into the oven raw and comes out in one piece. The batter is small — about a cup and a half — and it is meant to stay shallow.
- The hinge: one bake, two texturesThe meringue goes onto uncooked batter and both set together over 40 minutes. Spread the batter evenly to the rim first, then drop the meringue in spoonfuls and join them, rather than spreading from the centre, which drags the soft batter up into the whites.
- Oven350F is correct as written, and no preheating shortcut helps here. If the meringue is dark brown before 30 minutes, tent loosely with foil for the remainder; the cake beneath needs the full time.
- PanThe recipe gives no size; the small quantity of batter suggests an 8- or 9-inch plate. The preference for glass is in the original text, and one practical advantage is that you can see whether the bottom crumb has browned, which is useful when a tester through the meringue tells you little.
- ShorteningThe recipe says only "shortening," which in this period most often meant hydrogenated vegetable shortening, though lard is possible; either creams to a stable foam and gives a pale, tender crumb. Butter works and tastes better; expect slightly more spread and a faster-browning edge.
- Meringue ratioThree-quarters of a cup of sugar to two whites is roughly double the usual proportion, so this bakes to a firm, chewy, macaroon-like layer rather than a soft cloud. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time to whites already at soft peak or it will deflate them.
- Blanching the almondsCover shelled almonds with boiling water for about a minute; the skins slip off between finger and thumb. Dry them well before chopping, and expect about 1/3 cup chopped from roughly 2 ounces whole.
- ServingSix modest wedges. Cool completely in the pan — the meringue crackles and the cake is fragile while warm — and cut with a serrated knife wiped between slices.
Cakes baked under a meringue lid were a thrifty way to use a whole egg in two forms: yolks enriching the batter, whites whipped with sugar into a topping that dispensed with any need for frosting. Calling such a cake a pie because it is baked in a pie pan is a common feature of American community cookbooks of this period, where a shallow round dish and a single oven setting mattered more than strict category. The note preferring glass reflects the period's enthusiasm for heatproof glass bakeware.