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Famous Cream Pie
One and one-half tablespoons sugar, one tablespoon flour, one egg and the yolks of two eggs. When smooth add gradually one pint milk. Add one teaspoonful vanilla. Line your pie tin with crust and put holes in it with a fork to keep from blistering. Bake until a light brown. Put the filling in, the meringue on top and brown in oven.
A thin boiled-custard pie of the plainest sort, written for a cook who already knew how custard behaves. The instructions leave out the step that matters most, so read the first point before you start.
- The filling has to be cookedAs printed, an uncooked milk-and-egg mixture goes into a baked shell and is only "browned" under the meringue, which is not long enough to set it or to bring the eggs to a safe temperature (160F for egg mixtures). Cook the filling first in a double boiler or heavy saucepan, stirring until it coats a spoon, then fill the shell and brown the meringue.
- The sugar looks wrongOne and a half tablespoons of sugar to a pint of milk gives a barely sweet custard. Many cream pie recipes call for considerably more, on the order of a third to a half cup. The figure here may be a misprint, or may assume a sweet meringue carries the pie.
- ThickeningOne tablespoon of flour to a pint of milk sets very softly, closer to a pouring custard than a sliceable filling. Two to three tablespoons of flour, or two of cornstarch, gives a filling that holds a cut edge.
- Blind baking"Put holes in it with a fork" is docking. It helps, but a modern cook should also line the shell with parchment and pie weights for the first 15 minutes at 400F, then finish uncovered until light brown.
- MeringueThe two whites left from the yolks make the meringue; beat them with about two tablespoons sugar each. Spread it so it touches the crust all the way round or it will shrink and weep.
- Browning temperatureA hot oven scorches the meringue before the interior sets. Around 350F for 12-15 minutes gives an even light brown; the original gives no temperature at all, only "brown in oven."
- YieldProbably one 9-inch pie, six to eight slices; the recipe does not say. Refrigerate any that is left; an egg-and-milk custard should not sit out.
Cream pie is the American kitchen's answer to French crème pâtissière in a shell, and by the late nineteenth century versions were widespread in regional cookbooks, usually distinguished only by whether they took vanilla, lemon, chocolate or coconut. The word "famous" in the title reflects a common naming habit of the era rather than a claim about any particular bakery; community and promotional cookbooks of the period carry many "famous" and "celebrated" recipes contributed by name. The economy of the dish is the real point: a pint of milk, three eggs and a spoonful of flour stretched into a dessert for a family table, with the spare whites doing double duty as the meringue so nothing was wasted.