Karo Pie
2 cups Karo, Blue or Orange Label 1/4 teaspoon vanilla Few grains salt 2 eggs Flaky pie crust 2 tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch Line a pie plate with the crust. Beat the egg yolks, add the Karo, cornstarch and vanilla mixed thoroughly. Fold in the egg whites beaten stiff and pour into the pastry lined plate.
Put crisscross strips of the pie crust over the top and bake from twenty-five to thirty minutes in a hot oven, 375 degrees F. Adaptation of Southern "Lasses" pie.
A corn-syrup custard pie of the sort that gave rise to pecan pie, written by the syrup company to sell syrup. Two things need attention: the filling is looser and sweeter than a modern cook expects, and the stated baking time is short for a custard.
- Which Karo to useBlue Label was the crystal-white syrup, and the other labels ran darker; the brand's colour coding shifted over the decades, so treat the label names as period detail rather than a spec. Light corn syrup gives a pale, near-transparent pie, dark gives a molasses-ish one closer to the "lasses" pie it imitates.
- The oven noteThe recipe calls 375F "hot," which tells you something about period ovens. By current usage 375F is moderately hot, and it is a sensible temperature here — high enough to set the crust, low enough that a syrup filling does not boil over.
- Bake longer than statedTwenty-five to thirty minutes will rarely set two cups of syrup thickened with only cornstarch and two eggs. Expect 40 to 50 minutes, and judge by the filling: puffed and set at the edge, with a small area at the center that still moves as a unit when the pan is nudged. It firms as it cools.
- Few grains saltRead as a scant 1/8 teaspoon. With this much sugar it is not optional; without it the pie reads as flat sweetness.
- Fold, then work quicklyBeaten whites folded into syrup deflate fast because the syrup is heavy and slick. Get the pie into the oven immediately. The whites will rise and then settle into a slightly foamy top layer over a denser bottom, which is characteristic of the style, not a failure.
- Cornstarch clumpingTwo tablespoons of dry starch dropped into syrup will lump. Whisk it into the yolks first, or slurry it with a spoonful of the syrup, before combining everything.
- Bottom crustA cold syrup filling in raw pastry gives a soft bottom. Chill the lined plate well and bake on a preheated sheet or the lowest rack to set the base early. The lattice strips brown before the filling finishes; tent them with foil if they darken too far.
- Yield and servingThe recipe does not say, but the quantities suit a 9-inch pie; cut small, eight to ten servings, as this is very sweet. Cool completely before slicing, and serve with unsweetened whipped cream.
Karo pie is the corporate cousin of Southern molasses pie — the recipe says so outright, calling itself an "adaptation of Southern 'Lasses' pie." Country cooks had long made pies from whatever cheap sweet syrup was at hand, molasses or sorghum, thickened with eggs, meal or crumbs; when Karo brand corn syrup arrived in the early twentieth century, the manufacturer's recipe pamphlets set about persuading cooks to substitute it, and pies of this exact type are often said to be the ancestors of the pecan pie that later filled Karo's advertising, though the line is more inference than documented descent. The specifying of both Karo and "Argo or Kingsford's" cornstarch is the tell: all three were brands of the same corn-refining concern, and the booklet exists to move all of them at once. Such promotional cookbooks circulated widely, often free for a coupon, and they did much to standardize American baking around branded ingredients.