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Cream Pie and Its Variations
1 cup milk 1 tablespoon corn-starch 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 egg-yolks or 1 whole egg 1 teaspoon vanilla Scald the milk. Mix the corn-starch, sugar and salt, and add hot milk slowly. Cook twenty minutes over hot water. Beat the egg-yolks and add slowly, stirring rapidly. Cool and add vanilla. Put into a baked crust. Vary in any of the following ways: Banana or orange pie--Slice fruit into baked crust and cover with custard filling. Cover top with meringue made from egg-whites. Chocolate pie--Use only seven-eighths tablespoon corn-starch. Add two squares of grated chocolate just before removing custard from the stove. Beat well. Cover with meringue. Coconut pie--Add two tablespoons shredded coconut to the meringue made from the egg-whites. Nut pie--Stir one cup of chopped nuts into the filling and sprinkle the top with a few. Raisins and nuts may be used together. Spice pie--Add two teaspoons each or ground cloves and cinnamon to the cooked filling. Date pie--Add one cup of chopped dates. Cover with meringue.
A single master custard with seven variations, in the style of magazine cookery of the 1920s and 30s. The filling is thin as written, and the salt is out of proportion to the sugar.
- SaltA full teaspoon of salt against a quarter cup of sugar will taste harshly saline in a sweet custard. A quarter teaspoon is the usual amount for this quantity of milk.
- QuantityOne cup of milk yields roughly a cup and a quarter of filling, enough for a shallow 8-inch shell only. For a standard 9-inch pie, double everything.
- ThickeningOne tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of milk gives a soft, spoonable custard rather than one that will hold a cut slice. Two tablespoons per cup is the modern proportion for a sliceable cream pie.
- Over hot waterThis means a double boiler, and twenty minutes is not excessive: cornstarch needs sustained heat to lose its raw taste and reach full thickening power. Stir often, since the starch settles.
- The yolksAdd them to the hot custard in a thin stream while stirring hard, then return the pan to the hot water for two or three minutes more, to about 170F. Adding yolks and cooling immediately leaves them barely cooked and the custard prone to thinning.
- Squares of chocolateA square is one ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate, so two squares is two ounces. The slightly reduced cornstarch may allow for the cocoa solids, which thicken a little themselves.
- MeringueTwo egg whites with about four tablespoons of sugar, beaten to firm peaks, spread to touch the crust edge all round, and baked at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes until lightly coloured. Meringue over a warm filling weeps less than over a chilled one.
- Spice pieTwo teaspoons each of cloves and cinnamon in this small amount of custard is a very heavy hand, particularly the cloves. A quarter teaspoon of cloves and half a teaspoon of cinnamon is closer to current taste.
- Setting and storageChill at least three hours before cutting. Being a milk-and-egg custard, it keeps in the refrigerator two days at most.
The New Delineator Recipes came out of The Delineator, the Butterick pattern company's household magazine, and the format here is pure magazine economy: one base formula, seven pies. A cornstarch-and-egg cream filling in a pre-baked shell was a mainstay of American home pastry through the first half of the twentieth century, cheaper in eggs than a true baked custard pie and quicker, since the filling cooks on the stove and the crust bakes separately. The variations track what a well-stocked pantry of the period held \m shredded coconut, dates, raisins, baking chocolate in squares, and bananas. The meringue also uses up the whites left by the yolks, a thrift that the master-recipe structure makes explicit.