Lemon Pie
One cupful of sugar, one and one-half cupfuls of boiling water, yolks of two eggs, one cupful of grated bread crumbs, one lemon. Stir all these ingredients together and cook a few minutes in a dish over hot water; make crust and bake, and when cold put in filling and take whites of eggs and beat very stiff and spread over top and brown lightly; very delicious.
A pre-cornstarch lemon pie, thickened with soft bread crumbs rather than flour or starch. The filling is cooked and cooled before it goes into a fully baked shell, so plan the two parts separately.
- The hinge: crumbs, not starchOne cupful of grated bread crumbs points to crumbs grated from a stale or day-old loaf rather than dry packaged crumbs, which absorb more liquid and can turn the filling pasty. The crumbs swell in the hot water and do much of the thickening, with the yolks adding richness and some additional set.
- "A dish over hot water"This is a double boiler. Set a heatproof bowl over simmering water rather than cooking direct on the burner, or the yolks will scramble and the crumbs will scorch.
- "Cook a few minutes"Expect this to take longer than the recipe's "few minutes" for a crumb custard of this volume: work over the water, stirring, until the mixture coats a spoon thickly and the crumbs have lost their grittiness.
- Temper the yolksWhisk the sugar, crumbs and lemon with the boiling water first, then beat in the yolks off the heat before returning the bowl over the water. Adding raw yolks straight to boiling water gives you threads of cooked egg.
- One lemonMost likely both the grated zest and the juice; juice alone tastes flat against a cupful of sugar. A modern lemon yields about 3 tablespoons of juice, so taste and add a second if it needs sharpening.
- Baking the shell blindThe recipe has the crust baked empty and cooled before filling. It specifies no temperature; modern blind-baking practice is roughly 425F with weights until set, then lower to about 375F until the base is dry and coloured.
- Browning the meringueTwo whites is a thin covering for a 9-inch pie. Beat them stiff with a spoonful or two of sugar for stability, seal the meringue right to the crust edge, and brown at 400F for 6 to 8 minutes. Meringue spread on a fully cold filling is prone to sliding and weeping; a briefly warmed filling grips it better.
- YieldEnough filling for one 8- or 9-inch single-crust pie, six modest servings.
Bread-crumb lemon pies belong to a long American tradition of thickening sweet fillings with whatever the pantry held: crumbs, crackers, ground rice, or flour. Cookbooks of the period print crumb, cracker and flour versions of lemon pie side by side. The soft meringue lid of stiffly beaten whites over a cooked yolk filling is the standard economy of the form, using the whole egg across two components and wasting nothing. Recipes of this vintage are also notably brief because they were written for cooks who already knew what a pie shell and a double boiler required; the instructions record proportions rather than method.