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Orange Custard Pie
Prepare the above pie exactly the same as lemon custard pie, but using the same quantity of orange flavouring instead of the lemon flavouring.
A one-line variation that assumes you have the lemon custard pie recipe open in front of you. Almost everything that needs saying concerns what changes when orange stands in for lemon.
- It is a dependent recipeThere are no quantities here at all; all the proportions come entirely from the lemon custard pie entry the text refers back to. Read that one first and treat this as an amendment to it.
- What "orange flavouring" meansIn a book of this period the phrase covers grated rind and juice, or a bottled essence, and the original does not say which. If the lemon version calls for the rind and juice of a lemon, use the rind and juice of one orange; if it calls for a spoonful of extract, use the same measure of orange extract.
- Orange is not a like-for-like swap for acidityLemon juice runs around 5 to 6 percent citric acid, orange juice about 1 percent, and lemon is far sharper against sugar. A straight substitution gives a flat, cloying custard. A teaspoon or two of lemon juice held back in the orange version restores the edge without reading as lemon.
- Zest carries the flavourMost of the aroma sits in the peel oils, not the juice. Grate the zest into the sugar and rub it in with your fingers before adding the eggs so the oils disperse through the whole filling.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. Modern practice for custard pies of this type is often to start hot to set the crust, around 425F for 10 to 15 minutes, then drop to 325 to 350F to finish; what matters is the filling itself, which curdles and weeps if it is taken much past the point of setting.
- Judging when it is doneThe centre should still wobble as a set mass when the pan is nudged; carryover heat finishes it. A knife inserted an inch from the centre comes out clean. Cooked until the middle is firm, the filling will crack and separate as it cools.
Chained variations like this one are common in American cookbooks of this period, where a compiler could dispose of a whole second pie in a single sentence. Lemon custard pies of this kind are often traced to the English lemon cheesecake and curd-tart tradition, transplanted and thinned into a custard poured into a single crust. Oranges made a plausible alternate flavouring partly for commercial reasons: by the early twentieth century Florida and California fruit was moving north by rail in quantity, and oranges were becoming easier for a cook to obtain in winter.