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Cream Pie (II)
Mrs. John Thomas.
One cup powdered sugar, one cup flour, one teaspoon cream tartar and one-half teaspoon soda, five eggs beaten separately, grated rind of lemon. Cream : Set in hot water one-half pint of milk; when scalding hot add onehalf cup sugar, a little salt and one egg beaten together; stir until thick, and when cool add one tablespoon vanilla; put between crusts.
Despite the name, no pastry is involved: this is a fatless sponge baked in two thin layers, split by a stirred custard. Read the ingredient list as a cake batter and everything falls into place.
- The "crusts" are cakeNineteenth-century cream pie was baked in shallow round tins — the same pans used for jelly cake — and the two thin sponge rounds were called crusts. Divide the batter between two greased and floured 8-inch pans, or bake one layer and split it horizontally.
- No oven temperature is givenA moderate oven, 350F, for 18-25 minutes for two thin layers. The sponge is done when it springs back and has just begun to shrink from the sides of the tin.
- Cream of tartar and sodaOne teaspoon cream of tartar with half a teaspoon soda is a homemade single-acting baking powder, and it starts working the moment it is wet. Have the pans ready and get the batter into the oven at once. If you substitute commercial baking powder, use about 1 1/2 teaspoons and omit both.
- Eggs beaten separatelyThis is the whole structure of the cake — there is no butter and no added liquid. Beat the yolks with the sugar until pale and thick, whip the whites to soft peaks, then fold in the flour and whites alternately and stop as soon as the flour disappears.
- "Set in hot water"A double boiler, or a bowl over a pan of simmering water. The custard is thickened by one egg alone, so direct heat will scramble it; over water it wants 8-12 minutes of steady stirring and will thicken to the consistency of pouring cream rather than pastry cream. A scant tablespoon of cornstarch slaked in a little of the cold milk gives a filling that stays put between layers.
- One tablespoon vanillaExtract strength was not standardised in this period, and homemade vanilla was in use, so a tablespoon need not have carried modern potency. With modern extract, 1 to 2 teaspoons is enough.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold today. Use superfine or ordinary granulated.
- Yield and servingOne 8-inch two-layer pie, 8 slices. Fill only after both cake and custard are completely cool, and refrigerate; an egg-and-milk filling should not sit out. Dust the top with sugar if you want it finished — the recipe gives no icing.
"Cream pie" in American household books of the 1870s commonly meant not a custard in a pastry shell but thin sponge layers with a boiled custard between them, cut in wedges like a pie and baked in pie or jelly tins because those were the shallow round pans every kitchen owned; custards in crust are well attested in the same period, so the layer sense was common rather than exclusive. The same formula appears under the names cream cake, custard cake and traditionally — in an account generally traced to Boston hotels putting chocolate over the top — Boston cream pie, said to be why it is still called a pie. The Home Cook Book (Chicago, editions appearing from the mid-1870s) was compiled from contributions by named local women, which is why this one carries Mrs. John Thomas's name and why a second, differing Cream Pie sits nearby: the book prints its subscribers' versions side by side rather than choosing between them. The reliance on cream of tartar and soda rather than a tin of baking powder dates the recipe usefully; commercial powders existed by the 1870s.