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Lemon Pie (One small teacup of boiling)
One small teacup of boiling water, put in juice and rind of one lemon, one teaspoonful of corn starch to thicken; then add four egg yolks, one cup of sugar, mixed together; beat the whites of two eggs stiff and put in with egg yolks and sugar. After custard is done put on top the whites of the other two eggs, put in oven and brown. Bake pie crust first.
A stovetop lemon custard poured into a pre-baked shell and topped with meringue. The recipe splits four whites two ways, which is easy to miss on a first read.
- The egg whites, dividedTwo whites are beaten stiff and folded into the yolk-and-sugar mixture, which lightens the filling; the remaining two whites become the meringue. Keep them in separate bowls from the start.
- A small teacupPerhaps 6 fl oz, but period teacup measures were not standardised and ran anywhere from about 4 to 8 oz. Err on the small side rather than using a full measuring cup of water.
- Thickening is mostly the yolksOne teaspoon of cornstarch to six ounces of liquid is very little. The filling sets because of four yolks, so cook it gently over low heat or a water bath, stirring constantly, and pull it off as soon as it coats a spoon thickly. Boiling it hard will scramble it.
- Blind-baking"Bake pie crust first" means a fully blind-baked shell: line with parchment and weights, 425F for about 15 minutes, then remove the weights and bake until dry and pale gold, 8 to 10 minutes more.
- Sugar in the meringueThe original sweetens only the filling. Modern practice beats about 2 tablespoons of sugar into each white after it reaches soft peaks; unsweetened meringue browns unevenly and weeps quickly.
- Browning the topSpread the meringue over filling that is still hot and seal it to the crust edge all around, which prevents shrinking and pooling. Brown at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes, or 400F for 5 to 8 if you want a darker crown.
- YieldThis quantity of filling will be thin in a 9-inch pan and probably suits an 8-inch shell better; perhaps six modest servings. It cuts cleanest once fully cooled, and should not be left standing at room temperature for long.
Lemon meringue pie in this form belongs broadly to the nineteenth century. Cornstarch was sold commercially from the 1840s onward as a cheap, reliable thickener, and refined white sugar and shipped lemons became more widely available over the same period. Earlier lemon pies and puddings often leaned on breadcrumbs, suet or a heavy custard baked in the shell. The two-stage method here, with a filling cooked on the range and a separately blind-baked crust, avoids relying on an oven that could be closely regulated.