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Covered Lemon Pie--Without Eggs
8 ounces of sugar--1 large cupful. 3 ounces of flour--1 small cupful. 1 lemon 1 pint of water--2 cupfuls.
Grate rind of the lemon into a small saucepan, using a tin grater and scraping off with a fork what adheres. Squeeze in the juice, scrape out the pulp, chop it, put in the water and boil. Mix the sugar and flour together dry and and stir them into the boiling liquor. When half thickened take it off and let finish in the pies.
The above makes two large pies or three small. It is necessary to be particular to get the right amount of flour. The mixture is pale yellow from the rind and sugar.
For the crust rub half a pound of shortening into a pound of flour, mix with cold water and roll out three times. Put top as well as bottom crust on these pies.
A bakery-scale lemon filling thickened with flour instead of eggs or cornstarch. The whole thing hinges on getting the flour right, which the original says plainly and does not explain.
- Trust the weights, not the cups3 ounces of flour is about two-thirds of a modern cup, not a full one; 8 ounces of sugar is a generous cup plus two tablespoons. Nineteenth-century trade cups varied, and the text itself warns to be particular about the flour. Weigh both.
- Why the flour must be mixed with the sugarStirring dry flour into boiling liquid gives lumps. Blending it thoroughly with the sugar first keeps the grains separated so they disperse before they gel. Add the mixture in a steady stream while whisking.
- Half thickened means half thickenedThe filling is pulled off the heat while still loose and finishes setting in the oven inside the sealed crust. Cooked to a full pudding on the stove it will be pasty and may weep once baked.
- Handling the lemonGrate only the yellow zest, not the white pith beneath it, and pick out every seed before chopping the pulp. Flour-set fillings carry bitterness plainly since there is no egg or butter to soften it.
- The crustHalf a pound of fat to a pound of flour is a standard 1:2 pie paste. The recipe says only to mix with cold water and roll out three times; the repeated rolling gives a rough-puff style layering, so keep everything cold between turns.
- Oven temperature, which the recipe omitsA double-crust pie of this kind wants a hot oven to set the bottom, about 425F for 15 minutes, then 375F for 25 to 30 minutes until the top is browned. Cut vents in the lid or the steam will lift it off the filling.
- Yield and servingTwo large pies or three small, as the recipe says; it gives no pan sizes. Cool completely before cutting; a flour-set filling firms as it drops to room temperature and will run if sliced warm.
Jessup Whitehead wrote for working bakers and hotel cooks, not home kitchens, and eggless formulas like this one earned their place on economy. Eggs were seasonal and, before reliable refrigeration and year-round poultry housing, expensive and unpredictable in winter, exactly when a bakeshop still needed to turn out lemon pies daily. Flour was a cheap thickener, and a boiled flour-and-sugar liquor could be made in quantity, held, and portioned out across a morning's pies. Eggless flour-thickened pies were common in American cookery of the period, and packaged cornstarch fillings later became the usual alternative. The recipe specifies a tin grater but gives no reason for it.