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Custard Pie
3 eggs 3/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups milk Beat the eggs until well mixed; add sugar, salt and scalded milk. Line pie plate with paste, pour in custard. Bake in moderate oven 25 to 30 minutes. The way to try a custard pie is to put a knife in center. As soon as it comes out dry the pie is baked.
Cocoanut is made the same way, adding 1 cup of cocoanut either fresh or dry and using only 2 eggs. Bake the same way.
A plain baked custard in a shell, and it stands or falls on when you take it out of the oven. A few of the original's figures need translating, and one of them looks like a misprint.
- The saltA full teaspoon of salt for three eggs and two cups of milk is far more than modern palates want. A quarter teaspoon is the usual proportion today; treat the printed amount with suspicion, as it may be a misprint.
- Moderate oven350F. Many bakers now start a custard pie at 425F for the first 10 minutes to set the bottom crust, then drop to 325-350F for the remainder, which is a defence against the soggy base this method invites.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk to about 180F, just until it shivers and steams at the edges. Add it to the beaten eggs in a thin stream while whisking, or you will cook the eggs into threads before the pie reaches the oven.
- The doneness testThis is the hinge. A knife that comes out perfectly dry in the center means the custard is already slightly overset and likely to weep as it cools. Pull the pie when the outer two inches are firm and a two-inch circle at the center still wobbles; residual heat finishes it. An instant-read thermometer at 175F in the center is the reliable version of the knife trick.
- Timing25 to 30 minutes suits a shallow plate. A modern 9-inch pie pan holds more custard and commonly takes 35 to 50 minutes at 325-350F. Judge by the wobble, not the clock.
- Paste"Paste" is pastry. A partly blind-baked shell, brushed with a little beaten egg white and returned to the oven for a minute to seal it, holds up much better under a wet filling than a raw one.
- CocoanutOld spelling of coconut. The dried coconut sold today is usually sweetened and much sweeter than the unsweetened desiccated coconut of the period; cut the sugar by a couple of tablespoons if you use it. "Fresh" means grated from the nut, which is wetter and milder.
- YieldThe recipe does not state a plate size; these quantities fill roughly a 9-inch shell, six to eight slices. Cool it completely before cutting: a warm custard pie slices into a puddle. Refrigerate leftovers, as with any egg-and-milk custard.
Custard baked in a pastry case is one of the oldest sweet dishes in the English kitchen, descended from the medieval "crustade" or "custarde" -- the word comes from the crust, not the filling, which tells you which part the cooks of the day thought was the point. By the time this book appeared, custard pie had become a fixture of the everyday household repertoire: three eggs, some sugar, milk on hand, and a plate of pastry. Its appearance here alongside a coconut variation reflects how far shredded desiccated coconut had spread through American kitchens by the early twentieth century, when it was sold in packets and treated as an ordinary pantry item rather than a tropical luxury.