Home › The World's Kitchen › Prune Pie
Prune Pie
Soak one pound dry prunes in plenty of cold water for ten hours. Remove stones, drain well, wipe thoroughly and place in a bowl with four ounces sugar and half teaspoon ground cinnamon; mix well for a minute, then proceed to finish the pie as per Nos. 117-118.
A filling recipe rather than a whole pie: the original sends you to two numbered crust entries elsewhere in the book. Here is what you need to fill the gaps.
- The missing instructionThe recipe hands you off to two numbered entries not reproduced here, presumably the book's pastry and assembly directions. Treated as a double-crust pie: line a pie plate with pastry, add the prunes, cover with a top crust or lattice, seal and vent.
- Weights and measuresOne pound of prunes is roughly 2 1/2 to 3 cups whole. Four ounces of sugar is about half a cup by volume, which is modest for a pie and correct here, since prunes are already sweet.
- Soaking timeTen hours suited the hard, fully dried prunes of the period. Modern pitted prunes are sold partially rehydrated and soft; two to three hours in cold water, or 30 minutes in hot water, is enough. Oversoaking turns them to mush.
- Wipe thoroughlyThis is the hinge of the recipe. Wet prunes flood the shell and the bottom crust never sets. Drain, then pat dry on a towel before mixing with the sugar.
- Insurance against a wet pieEven wiped, sugared prunes throw juice in the oven. A tablespoon of flour or two teaspoons of cornstarch tossed with the fruit binds it without being noticeable.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction. By modern practice for a double-crust fruit pie, start at 425F for 15 minutes to set the pastry, then drop to 350F for another 30 to 35 minutes until the crust is browned and juices bubble at the vents.
- SeasoningCinnamon alone is a little flat to current tastes. Grated lemon zest and a squeeze of juice, or a spoonful of the soaking liquid reduced, sharpens the fruit considerably.
- YieldEnough filling for one standard double-crust pie, six to eight servings. Good warm rather than hot, since the filling is dense and holds heat.
Prunes are simply dried plums, and for most of the nineteenth century they were among the few fruits a household could count on in late winter, arriving in boxes from the Agen district of southwestern France and, by the time this book was compiled, in growing volume from California's Santa Clara Valley. That reliability is why dried-fruit pies appear so often in American and Central European cookery: the filling could be started the night before from a pantry staple, with no fresh fruit in sight. The International Cook Book is generally attributed to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and it uses numbered cross-references, with basic pastes and doughs written once and pointed to thereafter. A cook working from the whole book would never notice the gap; a reader handed one page must supply the crust from memory.