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Whipped Cream Pie
Sweeten with white sugar one tea-cup very thick sweet cream, made as cold as possible without freezing, and flavor with lemon or vanilla to taste; beat until as light as eggs for frosting, and keep cool until the crust is ready; make crust moderately rich, prick well with a fork to prevent blistering, bake, spread on the cream, and to add finish put bits of jelly over the top. The above will make two pies. -Mrs. A. M. Alexander, Harrisburg.
A blind-baked shell filled with sweetened whipped cream at the last minute. Everything depends on the cream being cold and the shell being cool and fully baked.
- The teacupA nineteenth-century teacup in American cookbooks is generally reckoned at about 3/4 cup, though usage varies. Cream roughly doubles in volume when whipped, so one teacup yields about a cup and a half, which spread across two pies is a thin layer by modern expectations; a full pint of cream per two pies would give a fuller filling.
- "Sweet cream"This means fresh, unsoured cream, not sweetened cream. Use heavy cream (36% fat or more); whipping cream at around 30-35% will also work, while light cream or half-and-half will not hold peaks. Ultra-pasteurized cream is generally reckoned slower to whip and less stable once whipped.
- Cold is the hingeThe instruction to make the cream "as cold as possible without freezing" is the whole technique. Chill the bowl and beaters as well, and stop beating at soft-to-medium peaks; a few strokes past stiff and the cream breaks into butter and buttermilk.
- SweeteningAdd sugar after the cream has begun to thicken, not at the start. Two to three tablespoons per cup of cream is ample. Confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch, gives a marginally more stable result than granulated.
- Blind bakingPricking with a fork was the period method of preventing blisters. Lining the shell with parchment and pie weights works better: 425F for about 15 minutes with weights, then 10 to 12 minutes uncovered at 375F until the base is dry and coloured.
- Assembly and timingThe shell must be completely cold before the cream goes in, and the pie should be filled within an hour of serving. Unstabilized whipped cream weeps, and a baked crust under wet cream softens quickly. This is not a pie to make in the morning for the evening.
- The jelly finish"Bits of jelly" means dabs of a firm fruit jelly dropped over the surface; currant jelly was among the commonest jellies of the period. Use a stiff jelly rather than a runny preserve, which will bleed colour into the cream.
- YieldTwo pies as written. The recipe gives no size, and the filling is shallow.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the great late-Victorian wave of compiled cookbooks - a commercially published volume adapted from earlier Wilcox compilations - where recipes arrive signed and placed, here Mrs. A. M. Alexander of Harrisburg. A cream pie of this kind was a mark of access to good dairy: whipping cream by hand or with a wire whisk demanded cream rich enough to hold air, and holding it "as cold as possible without freezing" meant an icehouse, a springhouse, or a block bought from the iceman. The distinction between "sweet" and "sour" cream mattered daily in a household that skimmed its own milk, since cream left standing turned quickly in warm weather and was then destined for other uses. Filling a pre-baked shell with something uncooked was one way to get a delicate dessert to the table, and the jelly on top did the work that a piped rosette or a dusting of cocoa would do today.