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Raspberry Pie
Remove the stems from a pound or more of raspberries, place them in layers in a tart-dish, sprinkle sugar between the layers, raising the fruit to a point to a level above the dish. Place a strip of puff paste round the edge of the dish, cover the whole with a round of the paste, ornament it, sprinkle it over with sugar, place it in a moderate oven and bake it for about three-quarters of an hour. When done take it out and serve it either hot or cold.
This is a British-style deep fruit pie with a lid and no bottom crust, written for cooks who kept puff paste on hand. Two things are left to your judgment: the sugar and the size of the dish.
- The hinge: mound the fruitHeaping the berries above the rim is structural, not decorative. The pastry lid rests on the mound as the fruit collapses, so it settles instead of sagging into the juice and going soggy underneath.
- Tart-dishA rimmed pie dish, round or oval; for a pound of fruit something in the range of 1 to 1.5 quarts is about right. Any deep pie plate or shallow casserole of that capacity works, provided it has enough of a lip to take the pastry strip.
- The strip of paste round the edgeDampen the rim, press on a band of pastry about 3/4 inch wide, brush it with water, then lay the lid on and press to seal. Without that band the lid has nothing to grip and will slide off as the filling shrinks.
- Moderate oven350F. Puff pastry benefits from a hotter start, so 400F for the first 15 minutes and 350F for the rest gives better lift while still cooking the fruit through.
- SugarNone is specified. For a pound of raspberries, 1/2 to 3/4 cup granulated sugar between the layers suits most palates; less if the berries are very ripe. The final sprinkle on top is for crackle and browning.
- No thickenerNothing binds the juice, and the recipe adds none, so the pie will be juicy; cream is the usual accompaniment for British fruit pies. If you want it sliceable, toss the fruit with a tablespoon of cornstarch, but expect a different, more American result.
- Vent the lidNot called for in the original, but cutting a small hole or two slits in the centre lets steam escape; without a vent the lid may lift or force juice out at the seal.
- Timing and yieldThree-quarters of an hour is right for a full deep dish; a shallower one is done in 30 to 35 minutes, when the pastry is well coloured and juice bubbles at the vent. A pound of fruit serves 4 to 6.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen at the turn of the twentieth century. A covered fruit pie with no bottom crust, baked in a rimmed china dish and eaten with cream, is the standard British fruit pie of the period; the word "tart-dish" and the puff-paste band on the rim both belong to that lineage rather than to the American two-crust pie in a tin. The recipe is notably plain: no spice, no lemon, no thickener, nothing but fruit and sugar under a lid, on the assumption that the berries would be good enough to carry it alone.