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Custard Pie
Mrs. E. E. Marcy.
Make a custard of the yolks of three eggs with milk, season to the taste, bake it in ordinary crust; put it in a brick oven, that the crust may not be heavy, and as soon as that is heated remove it to a place in the oven of a more moderate heat, that the custard may bake slowly and not curdle; when done, beat the whites to a froth; add sugar and spread over the top, and return to the oven to brown slightly; small pinch of salt added to a custard heightens the flavour; a little soda in the crust prevents it from being heavy. Very nice.
The instructions are written for a brick oven that falls steadily in temperature, which is exactly what a custard wants. In a modern oven you have to create that drop deliberately, in two stages.
- The hinge: hot crust, cool custardThe hinge: hot first, then moderate -- in a modern oven one workable approach is to bake the shell in a hot oven and lower the heat before the filling goes in, though note that the original does not blind-bake; the filled pie goes into the hot part of the brick oven and is then shifted to a cooler spot. Any specific temperatures are an editorial choice, not in the recipe. A slow, even bake is what keeps the eggs from curdling; the point of "remove it to a place in the oven of a more moderate heat" is to avoid a scrambled, weeping filling.
- Unstated milk quantityThe recipe gives three yolks and no volume of milk, so the ratio is genuinely open. Period custard pies vary widely; three yolks alone will set only a shallow, very tender filling, and a fourth yolk or a whole egg would give a firmer set in a standard 9-inch shell.
- "Season to the taste"Most likely sugar plus flavouring: roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar for 2 cups of milk, with grated nutmeg, and vanilla if you like. Nutmeg was a common flavouring for custard pie in this period, though this recipe does not specify it.
- The pinch of saltSound advice, still repeated. A scant 1/4 teaspoon in the custard sharpens the dairy and egg flavour without reading as salty.
- Soda in the crustSaleratus or baking soda does turn up in some nineteenth-century pastry recipes, apparently as insurance against a tough, heavy crust. With modern flour, cold butter and a light hand it is unnecessary and can leave a faint soapy note.
- DonenessPull the pie when the outer inch is set and the centre still wobbles as a single mass; it will finish on the residual heat. An instant-read thermometer in the centre should show about 175F to 180F. Past that the proteins tighten and the custard weeps.
- The meringueBeat the three whites with about 2 tablespoons of sugar each, spread it so it touches the crust all the way round to stop it shrinking, and brown at 350F for 10 to 12 minutes. Meringue spread on a warm filling seals better than on a cold one.
- YieldAssuming a 9-inch shell (the recipe gives no size), one pie, six to eight slices. Custard pie does not keep well: refrigerate leftovers and eat them the next day.
Custard pie descends from the medieval "custarde" or open tart whose name comes from crustade, meaning simply a thing with a crust. By the time The Home Cook Book was compiled in the 1870s, the dish demanded a cook's control over her fire, since the custard had to set without curdling while the pastry cooked through. Mrs. Marcy's solution is the standard one for a brick oven, which holds a strong initial heat and then falls away over an hour or more, and she adds a further step of turning the leftover whites into a meringue lid.