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Lemon Crumb Pie
1 Cup Buttered Bread Crumbs 1/2 Cup Honey Yolks 2 Eggs White 1 Egg Pinch Salt 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch 1 Lemon Rind and Juice 1 Cup Cold Water Dissolve cornstarch in cold water.
Mix, fill crust, and bake. When the pie is done, cover over with a meringue.
A thrifty custard pie thickened with cornstarch and bulked out with buttered bread crumbs, sweetened with honey rather than sugar. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how pies behave, so a few gaps need filling.
- The hinge: cook the starch, or at least give it timeThe cornstarch is dissolved in cold water and poured into the shell raw, so it only gelatinizes in the oven. Whisk it smooth immediately before mixing so it has not settled. The book gives no baking time; a filling this wet will likely want something in the region of 35-45 minutes to set, and pulling it early risks a chalky, weeping layer.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives none. Start at 425F for 10 minutes to set the crust, then drop to 350F until the center is just barely wobbly. Return the meringued pie to 350F for 12-15 minutes to color.
- Buttered bread crumbsMost likely soft crumbs from a day-old loaf tossed in melted butter rather than dry packaged crumbs, which would drink the liquid and turn the filling pasty. Roughly 2 slices of bread torn or grated coarsely, with about 2 tablespoons of butter, will give the cup called for.
- The eggsTwo yolks and one whole white go into the filling; the second white is what you reserve for the meringue. Beat it with 2 tablespoons of sugar per white to soft-then-stiff peaks and spread it so it seals to the crust edge all around, or it will shrink and slide.
- Honey behaves differently from sugarHalf a cup of honey brings its own moisture and browns faster than sugar. Use a mild honey -- clover or orange blossom -- since buckwheat or dark honey will bury the lemon entirely.
- The lemonOne lemon gives about 3 tablespoons juice and a scant tablespoon of zest. Zest only the yellow, and add it with the honey rather than the water so it perfumes the whole filling.
- The crustA single shell; the volume of filling suits a 9-inch pan, though the book does not say. Blind-baking it 10 minutes before filling is worth the trouble here, since the filling is wet and the crumbs will not protect the base.
- YieldOne 9-inch pie, six to eight slices. Cool it completely before cutting; the cornstarch set continues as it drops to room temperature.
Crumb pies belong to the long tradition of making a filling stretch with what was already in the bread box -- the same instinct behind bread pudding, brown Betty, and the Pennsylvania shoofly. Substituting honey for sugar points to a period when refined sugar was either dear or rationed; American cookbooks pushed honey and corn syrup hard during and just after the First World War. The combination here, lemon and cornstarch under a meringue, is the standard lemon pie of the era with the sugar swapped for a cheaper stand-in, which tells you most of what you need to know about the kitchen this book was written for: a cook expected to produce a company dessert out of pantry ends.