Home › Recipes › Apple Custard Pie
Apple Custard Pie
Three cups milk, 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups thick stewed apples; strain through colander; beat eggs lightly, mix with the apples, flavor with nutmeg; bake with one crust. 2 cups pastry flour Powder
A custard pie thickened with both egg and cooked apple, closer to a pumpkin pie in texture than to a sliced apple pie. The quantities make more filling than one standard pie shell will hold.
- YieldThree cups milk, four eggs, a cup of sugar and two cups of apple pulp come to something like six or seven cups of filling — more than one 9-inch shell will take. Halve everything for a single pie, or have a second shell ready.
- "Bake with one crust"This means a bottom crust only, no top or lattice. Line the pan, chill the shell well, and blind-bake it 10-12 minutes before filling; a wet custard poured into raw pastry soaks the base.
- Thick stewed applesUnsweetened applesauce cooked down until a spoon drawn through it leaves a track. Commercial jarred sauce is too loose and usually pre-sweetened — reduce it in a wide pan first and cut the sugar accordingly.
- StrainingThe colander step most likely applies to the apples rather than the finished custard: push the stewed fruit through to remove skin and fibre before the eggs go in. The original does not say outright which is meant.
- OvenThe original gives no temperature. Modern practice for a custard of this kind: start at 425F for 15 minutes to set the pastry, then drop to 325F for a further 30-40 minutes; or a steady 350F for about 45 minutes.
- DonenessThe pie is done when the outer two inches are set and the centre still wobbles as a single mass. Custard carries on cooking out of the oven; baked until firm all through, it weeps and cracks.
- Eggs and milkBeat the eggs only until broken up and combined, as the original says — whipping air in gives a souffléd top that collapses. Whole milk is what is meant; skim milk sets thin.
- NutmegThe recipe stirs it through with the apples and eggs. Grating it fresh over the surface once the filling is in the shell is an alternative.
- ServingCool completely before cutting, at least three hours. Warm custard pie will not slice cleanly.
Custard pies built on a fruit pulp were a thrifty way to stretch a small quantity of stewed apples — often the last of the barrel, or fruit too bruised to slice — across a full pie with eggs and milk from the same household. Community and "reliable" recipe collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries carry dozens of these one-crust custards under names like apple custard, pumpkin, squash and vinegar pie, all worked from the same proportions of dairy, egg and sweetener with whatever body was on hand. Nutmeg was the near-universal flavouring, cheap and shelf-stable in a way that vanilla extract was not, and the single bottom crust reflected both economy of fat and flour and the plain fact that a wet custard cannot support a lid.