Munchie Monday: Lemon Pie with Homemade Pie Crust

The Macculloch family recipe for lemon pie lists only five ingredients but does not provide specific instructions on how to combine the ingredients, how long to bake the pie, or even the temperature of the oven. Additional research had to be done to identify and test possible methods for preparing the lemon pie filling. Comparing the 19th-century Macculloch recipe to modern recipes revealed that there were only two possible methods for preparing the filling, either mixing the ingredients in a saucepan on the stove or mixing the ingredients in a bowl without heat.

Most modern methods of making a lemon pie filling, including lemon meringue pie, use cornstarch as a thickener and/or condensed milk. Interestingly, these two ingredients, cornstarch and condensed milk were not available for use in baking until the later half of the 1800s. Cornstarch was invented in New Jersey by Thomas Kingsford (1799-1869) in Jersey City in 1842 to be used for laundry starch, not for baking. By the 1850s corn starch for culinary purposes was being experimented with.  Around the same time in 1856, Gail Borden Jr. (1801-1874), founded the New York Condensed Milk Company which was built on the successes of the French confectioner, Nicholas Appert (1749-1841) who is credited with inventing condensed milk, without sugar, in 1827. Since these two ingredients were not readily available to the Maccullochs, the adapted recipe below is prepared not in a saucepan over heat but by mixing the ingredients first and then baking them in a baked pie crust. The pie crust recipe handwritten into the Macculloch family’s cookbook needed only minor changes or recommendations to make a delicious homemade pie crust.

 

Lemon Pie –Original Recipe

2 limones

3 huevos

½ taza de mantequilla

½ taza de leche

½ taza de azúcar

 

Lemon Pie—Adapted Recipe

2-4 lemons (1/3 or ½ cup lemon juice depending upon preference)

2 teaspoons of lemon zest

3 eggs, room temperature

½ cup butter, softened

½ taza de leche

½ taza de azúcar

8-inch or 9-inch pre-baked/blind baked pie crust

Cream softened butter in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar. Add yolks one at a time, mixing between each yolk. (Save egg whites for a later step.) Add lemon juice and zest. Mix well. Add milk. In a separate bowl beat eggs whites until they form soft peaks. Stir in a small amount of egg whites to lemon pie filling and then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour the filling into baked pie crust. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees then reduce oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Top of pie should be firm to the touch and starting to brown. Cool pie on baking rack. Refrigerate for 5 hours before serving. *Graham cracker crust can also be used.

 

Ellen’s Pie Crust—Original Recipe

2 ½ cups flour sifted (small cup)

1 cup lard (large cup)

1 tablespoon of butter

1 rounded teaspoonful of baking powder

1 good pinch salt

1 teaspoonful sugar

Ice water (large white cup)

Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into basin. Pour boiling water over lard, then pour off again, leaving lard about as soft as thick cream. Mix lard & butter into flour with silver knife, mixing as little as possible. Add ice water (about 1 cup) enough to make thin paste. Do not roll out. Make into ball with hands. Let…for several hours….

 

Ellen’s Pie Crust—Adapted Recipe

2 ½ cups flour

1 cup lard or shortening, cut in small cubes

1 tablespoon butter, cut in small pieces

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/8 cucharadita de sal

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup of ice water (may not need all the ice water)

Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in a large bowl. Work in shortening and butter into the dry ingredients with your hands. Dough should be small pea-size or almond-size pieces. Add ¼ cup of ice water to the dough. If the dough is still dry, add one teaspoon of ice water to the dough at a time until the right consistency. Test the dough by squeezing a small amount in your hands to see if it holds together. Divide dough in half and shape into 2 balls. Place each ball into a one-gallon zip top plastic bag. Use a rolling pin, flatten into a 6- or 7-inch circle. Seal bags and place in freezer for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. To pre-bake/blind bake pie crust you will need an 8-inch or 9-inch pie plate, parchment paper, aluminum foil, and pie weights (or dry beans). On a floured surface roll out dough with the rolling pin. Push the rolling pin from center of dough away from you and rotate and flip dough over, adding more flour as needed. Roll out dough until it is 2 inches larger than your pie plate. Transfer dough to pie plate by rolling the dough onto the rolling pin and unrolling the dough into the pie plate. Fit the dough into the pie plate but do not press or stretch the dough. Use a fork to pierce the bottom of the pie crust several times. Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit over the pie crust. Shape a piece of aluminum foil to fit over the parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dry beans. Bake pie crust for 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper, aluminum foil, and pie weights/dry beans and bake an additional 10 minutes. Let the pie crust cool before adding filling to bake the finished pie. Makes two 8-inch pie crusts.