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Raisin Pie
1¼ cups seeded raisins 1½ cups boiling water ½ tablespoon flour 1-21-2 cup sugar cup finely chopped walnuts 1 tablespoon lemon juice Grated rind of lemon Wash the raisins carefully and cook in the boiling water until tender. Mix the flour and sugar and add to the cooked raisins, stirring until it thickens. Add the lemon gratings and walnuts, cool slightly and bake in a double crust pie in a hot oven 450°F. Reduce heat during the last 10 minutes. The nuts may be omitted. 1½ cups steamed pumpkin forced through a strainer
A boiled-raisin filling thickened with flour, of the kind that kept a pie on the table when fresh fruit was out of season. The ingredient list needs interpretation before you start.
- Sugar and nuts are ambiguousThe quantities for sugar and for chopped walnuts have not survived legibly in this printing. Something in the region of ½ to ¾ cup sugar and ½ cup nuts suits this amount of fruit; taste the filling before it goes into the shell rather than trusting a figure.
- One tablespoon of flour is not muchFor 1½ cups of liquid that is a thin bind, and the filling will still be loose when it comes off the heat. Cook it until it visibly coats the spoon, and expect it to set further as it cools; if it looks watery, add a second tablespoon slaked in cold water.
- OvenThe recipe calls for a hot oven at 450°F, which sets the bottom crust under a wet filling, then says only "reduce heat during the last 10 minutes" without naming a second temperature or a total time. A moderate oven is the usual reading for such a reduction. Bake until the top crust is brown and the filling bubbles at the vents.
- Cool the filling properly"Cool slightly" is doing a lot of work. Hot filling melts the fat in the bottom crust before the oven can set it. Let it come down to at least lukewarm.
- Seeded raisinsMeaning raisins with the seeds removed, a job then done by hand or with a mechanical seeder. Any ordinary seedless raisin today is a workable equivalent.
- LemonThe rind carries most of the aroma and the juice cuts the sweetness. Grate before juicing, and use only the yellow zest.
- YieldFilling for one double-crust pie; the recipe gives no pan size or slice count. It cuts more cleanly once fully cold.
Raisin pie belongs to the family of American store-cupboard pies that carried households through winter and early spring, alongside vinegar pie, mock apple and dried-apple pie. Dried fruit kept indefinitely, needed only water and heat to become a filling, and cost little. The dish is often called "funeral pie" in Pennsylvania Dutch communities, traditionally explained by the fact that its ingredients were always on hand and it could be assembled at short notice for a gathering of mourners. Its appearance among the plain pastry and cookie recipes marks it as everyday baking rather than an occasion dish: cheap, keeping well, and sweet enough to satisfy without butter or eggs.