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Cream Pie (Pour a pint cream upon a cup)
Pour a pint cream upon a cup and a half powdered sugar; let stand until the whites of three eggs have been beaten to a stiff froth; add this to the cream, and beat up thoroughly, grate a little nutmeg over the mixture, and bake in two pies without upper crusts. Mrs. Henry C. Meredith,
A single-crust baked cream custard, thickened only by egg white. It is closer to a set cream than to the cornstarch "cream pie" of later cookbooks, and it wants a low oven and a watchful eye.
- The hinge: low heat, no browningA cream-and-white custard curdles and weeps if it is pushed. Bake at 325F and pull the pies when the outer two inches are set and the centre still trembles; residual heat finishes it.
- "Powdered sugar" is not confectioners' sugarIn 1880s usage it meant granulated sugar ground fine, with no cornstarch or anti-caking agent. Modern superfine (caster) sugar is the direct equivalent; today's powdered sugar will add starch the recipe never intended.
- A pint of creamTwo cups. Use heavy or whipping cream — period "cream" was unhomogenised and rich, and half-and-half will not set firmly with whites alone.
- The sugar is very highA cup and a half to two cups of cream is sweeter than most palates now want, and sugar also slows setting. Three-quarters to one cup gives a custard that sets more reliably.
- Whites onlyThere are no yolks here, so the filling bakes pale, delicate and slightly springy rather than rich and yellow. Beating the froth into the cream thoroughly, as written, will knock most of the air back out; the result is a custard, not a meringue, and you are not trying to keep it puffed.
- The shellsTwo shells; the quantity is small by modern standards, so smaller or shallow plates suit it better than deep 9-inch ones. Partially blind-bake them — 15 minutes at 400F, weighted — before adding the liquid filling, or the bottom crust will not cook through at custard temperature.
- NutmegGrate it whole over the surface just before baking, as written. Pre-ground nutmeg has usually lost the volatile oils that carry this kind of plain custard.
- Yield and servingTwo pies, six to eight slices each. Cool completely before cutting — cut warm, the filling slumps — and refrigerate leftovers, since this is an egg-and-dairy custard.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the family of compiled American household manuals that grew out of Buckeye Cookery, assembled from contributed receipts and printed with the contributor's name attached, as here with Mrs. Henry C. Meredith. That format tells you something about the recipe's brevity: it was written down by one cook for other cooks who already knew what a pie shell and a moderate oven were, so nothing is specified that a kitchen of the 1880s could take for granted. "Cream pie" at this date covered a range of single-crust custards rather than one fixed dish; the starch-thickened, whipped-topped version most Americans now picture belongs to the following decades. Recipes calling for whites alone often appear in books alongside a yolk-heavy cake or a boiled custard, a juxtaposition that has often been read as a practical habit in a household that cracked eggs by the dozen and did not want the leftovers wasted, though the connection is inferred rather than documented.