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Lemon Pie (Four eggs one and a half cups)
Four eggs, one and a half cups sugar, two-thirds cups water, two table-spoons flour, one lemon. Beat the yolks of eggs until very smooth (beat the yolks a long time and whip the whites well), add the grated peel of lemon and the sugar, beat well, stir in the flour, and add the lemon juice (if lemons are small two may be necessary), and lastly the water; stir well, and pour in pie-pans lined with paste. When baked, take from oven, and spread over them the whites of the eggs beaten dry and smooth with four table-spoons pulverized sugar; return to oven and brown slightly. The above recipe is for two pies. -Mrs. Virginia C. Meredith.
A thin, old-style lemon custard filling thickened with flour rather than cornstarch, baked in the shell and then topped with meringue. The instructions assume a cook who knows her own oven, so the numbers below fill the gaps.
- Oven temperatureBake the filled shells at 375F until the custard is set at the edges and only slightly loose in the centre, roughly 30 to 40 minutes. The meringue goes back into a 350F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or under a hotter 400F oven for 5 to 8 if you want a darker top.
- The hinge: pour the filling hot-ish and meringue while warmThe hinge: meringue while the pie is still hot -- Spread the meringue over the filling as soon as the pie comes out of the oven, edge to edge, sealing it to the crust rim. Meringue laid on cold custard slides and weeps.
- Pulverized sugarIn this period, sugar ground fine from loaf or lump sugar, somewhere between today's superfine (caster) and confectioners' sugar. Caster sugar is the closest easy substitute; confectioners' sugar will work but contains cornstarch and gives a slightly chalkier meringue.
- Flour as the thickenerTwo tablespoons of flour for two pies is a light set by modern standards; expect a soft, spoonable custard rather than a sliceable lemon curd. If you want cleaner slices, the same volume of cornstarch sets firmer, though the flavour is blander.
- Soggy-bottom insuranceThe recipe pours a wet filling straight into raw pastry. If that worries you, blind bake the lined pans at 425F for 12 to 15 minutes with weights, then cool slightly before filling; this is a modern departure from the printed method.
- LemonsThe recipe wants one lemon for the pair of pies, or two if they are small, so aim for the zest and juice of one large lemon (about 3 tablespoons juice) and go to two if yours are small or dry.
- Meringue and egg whiteFour whites with four tablespoons sugar is a lean, dry meringue that browns fast. Bake it until the interior reaches 160F if you are cautious about lightly cooked whites.
- YieldTwo pies, most likely 8- or 9-inch, six to eight slices each. The whole recipe halves cleanly: two eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup water, 1 tablespoon flour, 2 tablespoons sugar for the meringue.
Lemon pies of this kind spread widely through American community cookbooks in the later nineteenth century, as imported Italian citrus and improving rail distribution made lemons a more ordinary grocery item. The two-part method here -- filling baked in the shell, meringue browned afterwards -- is the pattern that leads towards the tall meringue pies of the twentieth century. The attribution is worth noting: Virginia Claypool Meredith of Indiana was a well-known agricultural writer and livestock breeder, and later the first woman trustee of Purdue University, so her name in a receipt column carried the weight of an expert rather than a neighbour. Compilations of this sort were assembled largely from contributed recipes, which is one reason the measurements are confident while the oven directions are almost nonexistent.