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Apricot Pie
Take an ordinary pie-dish and make sufficient tart paste, according to the size of tart proposed to be made; lay closely pressed around the border of the dish, previously moistened, a band of paste three inches wide and a sixth of an inch thick. Within the dish arrange halves of apricots to fill it (unripe fruit will do for these pies), a little sugar and an ounce or two of butter. Roll out some more paste to make a crust, and, wetting the band, cover over with the sheet of paste, press the edges down, and trim. Brush over the top with the white of egg and strew finely-broken sugar over it. Bake for an hour and a quarter, and serve hot.
A plain deep-dish fruit pie of the English kind, written for a cook who already knows how much sugar a pie takes. The instructions to watch are the pastry band around the rim and the underripe fruit.
- The paste bandPressing a three-inch, 1/6-inch-thick strip of pastry onto the moistened rim before the lid goes on is the traditional way to seal a deep dish that has no bottom crust. It gives the lid something to grip so juices do not force it up; skip it and the top tends to slide and leak.
- Tart pasteRead this as a firm sweet shortcrust rather than a puff paste. The only thickness given is a sixth of an inch, for the rim band; roll the lid to something similar.
- Oven heatNone is given. A pie like this is well served by about 400F for the first 20 minutes to set the crust, then 350F for the remainder; held high throughout, the top risks colouring before the fruit is done.
- TimeAn hour and a quarter suits a deep dish of firm, underripe fruit. Riper apricots will be done well before that, so test the fruit with a skewer rather than trusting the clock.
- Unripe fruit is deliberateUnripe fruit is allowed -- The recipe says only that unripe fruit 'will do'. In practice firm fruit holds its shape where soft ripe halves break down. Drained canned halves work but need less sugar and less time.
- Sugar and butter, unmeasuredSugar is left to the cook and to the fruit; the 'ounce or two' of butter is roughly 28-57 g.
- JuiceNothing here thickens the fruit, and apricots give up a lot of liquid. A tablespoon of cornstarch or two of flour tossed with the sugar keeps the filling from being soup, and cut a vent in the lid so steam escapes.
- Finely-broken sugarLump sugar crushed to coarse crumbs. Coarse sanding or demerara sugar over the egg-white wash gives the same crackled, glittering top.
- YieldIn a 9-inch deep dish this would serve six to eight, though the recipe leaves the size to the cook. Serve hot, as directed.
Oscar Tschirky's collection of 1896 draws on the English and French professional manuals of the preceding decades, and this reads as an English-style pie: a deep dish, no bottom crust, and a band of pastry pressed round the moistened rim to anchor the lid. The words 'pie' and 'tart' are used loosely here, as they often are in the period. The allowance of unripe fruit is practical — apricots ripen fast and bruise easily. The finish of egg white and crushed lump sugar reflects a time when loaf sugar was broken down by hand to the size wanted.