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Apple Meringue Pie
Pare, slice, stew and sweeten ripe, tart and juicy apples, mash and season with nutmeg (or lemon peel), fill crust and bake till done; spread over the apple a thick meringue made by whipping to froth whites of three eggs for each pie, sweetening with three tablespoons powdered sugar; fiavor with vanilla, beat well, and cover pie three-quarters of an inch thick. Set back in a quick oven till well "set," and eat cold. In their season substitute peaches for apples.
A single-crust apple pie filled with what is essentially thick applesauce and finished with a soft meringue. The original assumes you know how to judge a filled crust by eye, so a few numbers help.
- Blind-bake the shellBlind-baking the shell -- The recipe says to fill the crust and bake till done, so shell and filling go in together. Because the filling is already cooked and will not set the pastry, many modern cooks prefer to line and weight the shell, bake at 400F until dry and pale gold, then fill and return it to the oven.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400-450F in period terms, though period usage varies, and here it is for setting the meringue only. Modern practice is to brown a soft meringue at 350-375F for 12-15 minutes so the interior sets rather than the surface scorching over a raw center.
- Apples"Ripe, tart and juicy" means a cooking apple that breaks down: Bramley, Gravenstein, Granny Smith. Stew covered with barely any water, then cook uncovered to drive off moisture, or the meringue will weep into a loose filling.
- SweeteningNo quantity is given because it depends on the fruit. Start at about 1/2 cup sugar per 2 lb of prepared apples and taste; the meringue adds considerable sweetness on top.
- Powdered sugarIn this period this usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Superfine (caster) sugar is the closest match and dissolves cleanly into the whites.
- Three whites, three tablespoonsThat is a lean meringue by modern standards, closer to 1 tablespoon sugar per white where 2 is now usual. It will be soft and quick to brown rather than glossy and stable.
- Seal the edgeSpread the meringue so it touches the crust all the way round. Meringue that floats free of the rim shrinks and slides as it cools, and the three-quarter-inch depth called for here makes that more likely, not less.
- Cooling and serving"Eat cold" is right for the texture, but cut with a wetted knife and expect some weeping if it sits refrigerated overnight. The recipe gives no pan size; a pie of the usual 9-inch sort serves six to eight.
Meringue-topped fruit pies are often said to have been a genteel late-nineteenth-century way of using up whites left over from custards and cakes, which took the yolks; such an arrangement would have made economic sense in a kitchen where eggs were bought by the dozen and nothing was thrown out. The sturdy, sweetened, oven-set meringue familiar today spread widely once cheap refined sugar and reliable ranges made it routine. Books like this one tended to give pies in exactly this compressed telegraphic style, assuming the reader had watched the process at home and needed only the proportions and the reminder that peaches will do just as well in August.