Typewritten Pie Crust: or, Every pie is a journey

My perfect pies are always a bit small.

Flaky Pie Crust 1 cup flour ¼ teaspoon salt 6 tablespoons butter or shortening (or a mix of both) about 3 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold water Have the butter soft enough work with, but still cold enough to be firm. Sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a metal spatula until it is roughly in pea-size pieces. Gradually add enough water to make a stiff dough, cutting and turning the dough as before to mix it together. Put in a sealed container (a ziploc bag will do) and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (In colder weather, you can rest it on the countertop unless your kitchen is very warm.) Roll out on a well-floured surface until it is big enough to cover a 9-inch pie pan. Dust flour on top of the dough so it doesn't stick to the rolling pin. If it doesn't come out right the first time, fold the dough up (instead of pressing or wadding it into a ball) and reroll it. Folding the dough helps keep it from becoming tough or sticky when you roll it again. To transfer the crust to the pie pan, fold it loosely into quarters. (You want your folds to make a + sign in the dough-- so don't fold it lengthwise twice like you're folding up a letter.) Place it in the pan, with the corner in the center of the pan. Then unfold it and let it lay into place. Or, roll the dough around the rolling pin. Then hold the rolling pin over the edge of the pie pan and unroll the crust over it. If your recipe calls for a pre-baked pie crust, prick it a few times with a fork. Then bake at 400° for about 15 minutes, or until it's golden. Check on it about halfway through the baking time to see if it's rising up in the pan. If it does, pierce the bubbles with a fork and then press them back down. Source: Typewritten clipping, unknown date Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

I couldn't help wondering why my great-grandmother pasted this typewritten pie crust recipe next to two newspaper articles about the same thing. How many pie crusts can one person need?

In case you want to cook like it's 1940s Chicago, her entire recipe binder is here!

Maybe my great-grandmother never got a pie to turn out right and kept adding articles to the collage in the hopes that the next one would finally solve her problems. Or, she might have used bits and parts of the directions from each.

As much as the "perfect pie" clipping in her notebook has changed my baking (almost as much as Delia Smith's tutorial video), my "perfect" crusts are always a bit small. I have to slightly stretch the dough to make it cover the whole pan. It's nice to avoid waste, but I don't want holes under my pies either.

So, I decided to try out the typewritten recipe on the same page. After all, she must have saved it for a reason. Maybe she was like "This. This is the one that always comes out right." 

The directions read like a condensed version of the big newspaper article on the same page. (You know, the one that I learned so much from.) You might follow the newspaper clipping if you've never done this before, but then you would use the short instructions on the typewritten version when you only needed a quick reminder. However, the ingredient amounts are slightly different. I couldn't help wondering if it comes out ever-so-slightly better (and will make pie with the flimsiest of excuses). 

Since this recipe gives us a time and temperature for baking it empty (none of the others do), I picked out a pie that calls for a baked shell just to try it out. (Also I was in the mood for pie.) Also, the other recipes on the page are long newspaper articles with detailed paragraphs. This is just a typewritten slip. Sometimes the most unassuming-looking recipes are the best ones. 

Just in case it matters, I got out the sifter. When we follow directions, we are free to blame the original writer.

The ingredients call for shortening, but I used butter instead. As we have noted previously, shortening makes for crumbly pie dough that is irksome to work with. I told myself that I was probably still following the directions anyway. A lot of older recipes use the word shortening to mean "any solid fat." You often see things like "butter or other shortening" or "dripping, lard, or other shortening" in the ingredient list (if there is one). Or one might find notes like "any other shortening may be substituted for the oleo" in the directions.

I hate that no one (besides Delia Smith, of course) ever says to let the dough rest before getting out a rolling pin. None of the pasted-down pie clippings on my great-grandmother's oversize page doesn't mention it. Maybe it's one of those steps that was too obvious to write at the time, just like no recipe today ever says "discard the eggshells." Frustration aside, it makes me wonder what else no one wrote down that makes their recipes so hard to follow today.

After letting the pie crust rest (seriously, always let the dough sit for at least 30 minutes. It's one of those wonderful times when you can make things better by sitting down), it rolled out into a nearly round shape. I took it as a sign that I had done something right.

It was now time to get this into the pan. Our recipe says to "pat and roll out to fit 9-inch pie pan." As it happens, today's pie pan has "9 INCH" molded into its underside so we know we're following the directions. (As with all our pie pans, I don't know where this one came from.)  

Incidentally, after many pies where I wrapped the crust around the rolling pin and then unrolled it over the pan, I've found it so much easier to (loosely!) fold the dough into quarters, put it into the pan with the dough-corner in the center, and then unfold it.

This crust covered the pan without having to roll it as thin as tissue paper. We even had a few extra offcuts, though not enough to make an extra small turnover for myself. But most crucially, the crust fit the pan size that it claims.

The recipe tells us to "flute or crimp edge; perforate crust with fork." We actually managed to flute almost all the way around the pan (there were a few thin spots). 

 

I then pricked it with a fork even though I usually don't bother with that. In my experience, fork-pricking doesn't make any difference. Instead, it's best to follow Delia's advice and just check the oven about halfway through the time. As she says, "And if you find it starts to rise up a bit-- have a look about halfway through! And just sort of slap it down again or prick it again with a fork. It'll be perfectly all right." Well, I looked in the oven about halfway through the time and our crust definitely needed to be slapped down.

On the bright side, we knew our creation would live up to its typewritten title: "Flaky pie crust." However, almost all of our lovely fluting disappeared in the oven. But if we look at a section that didn't sag, you can see the lovely layers that awaited the upcoming pie.

Because my completionist streak attacks me at the most inconvenient times, I was going to make a pie at some later date using this last article:

But then I looked at the ingredient amounts (½ cup shortening, 1½ cups flour) and realized that we've been inadvertently following this one ever since I used the directions from Mrs. George O. Thurn's book. She writes the same recipe, doubled: 

A Book of Selected Recipes, Mrs. George O. Thurn, 1934

Incidentally, she also writes to "mix water in with knife," which echoes our other article's instruction to mix in the water with a spatula, "chopping and the turning back until the mixture is formed into a ball of dough." Delia Smith also uses a knife in her video. So the instruction works, but I had to see it before it made sense. At any rate, we can see Mrs. Thurn's happy results here:

Mrs. Thurn makes the kind of pie crust people don't leave behind on the plate. But getting to what we made today:

This recipe does in fact fill out a pan better than one from the biggest article my great-grandmother pasted onto the page. And true to the recipe's title, it was indeed very flaky. 

I think I did this page in the right order: first, learning from the two newspaper articles, then applying our lessons to the short recipe in the bottom corner. More importantly, we got a lot of pie out of completing this whole page.

Apple Brown Betty: Best served outdoors

Don't tell anyone I made this just to get rid of the breadcrumbs in the freezer.

Apple Brown Betty 4 cups breadcrumbs 4 cups sliced apples ½ cup brown sugar ½ cup white sugar ½ tsp nutmeg 1 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp salt (if butter is unsalted) ½ to 1 cup water Juice and rind of ½ lemon Heat oven to 350°. Grease a large casserole pan. Mix the sugars, spices, and salt (if using). Sprinkle a third of the crumbs into the pan. Place half the apples on top, then sprinkle with half the sugar. Dot with a third of the butter. Repeat these layers, dotting again with butter. Sprinkle the last of the crumbs on top, then dot with the last of the butter. Pour in enough water to come almost up to the top. Drizzle with the lemon juice and rind. Cover the pan with foil (or a lid if you have one) and bake 45 minutes. Uncover the pan after the first 25 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream, hard sauce (see recipe here), or lemon sauce. Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

Because I hate waste, I've been saving all of the bread that goes stale, letting it harden overnight in the refrigerator, pulverizing it in the food processor, and then dutifully freezing the resulting crumbs. Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was saving all these lovely breadcrumbs for. We don't deep-fry a lot of things here, nor do we make innumerable casseroles that want crumbs on top. You can see why I might make a recipe uses a lot of crumbs.

Brown Betty seemed perfect for the weather. We're in that time of year when the temperature oscillates between late autumn and early summer from one day to the next. You go to bed with an extra blanket (there's no point in running the furnace for a single night), and you wake up gasping in sweat and flinging all the bedclothes to the floor. The next night, you go to sleep with the fan aimed right at you and wake up in shivers. (I also thought the leftovers would pass for a decent breakfast in the same way that extra pie does in the holiday season.)

Yes, we used an orange instead of a lemon. It's always more economical to use what you have in the house.

I have hazy memories of liking brown Betty on camping trips. (Yes, there was a time when I went camping, though it wasn't necessarily my choice.) When told this to some friends while slicing the apples, no one believed I ever went camping. One of them said "I would pay to see you camp." To this I replied that he didn't have the money to pay me enough. (I swore at age fourteen that I would never be more than five minutes on foot from a hot shower and a toilet that flushes.)

Even when cooking in the great indoors, I can see why someone might have made this when Mrs. Mary Martensen's book came out. This dessert is made for cooking on a Depression-era budget. After all, the main ingredients are stale bread, water, and apples. 

After trying this, I could see why I liked it when camping. It's the perfect carb hit for the end of a long day of swatting mosquitos in the great outdoors. And it's really easy to slap together when your "kitchen" is a wobbly picnic table and you have nowhere to wash dishes. But as much as I liked brown betty when it was served out of a cast iron Dutch oven that had been sitting in the campfire (or at least I think I liked it), it wasn't as nice in the house. It tastes like apple pie filling and breadcrumbs. It's not bad. But it is exactly what went into it and nothing more. 

Going back to how perfect this is for a 1930s budget (and quite possibly a 2020s one), I will note that this is very filling. And with a Depression on, going to bed full is worth a lot of money. 

French Lace Cookies: Lovely to look at, lousy to eat

I didn't expect Betty Crocker of all "people" to print a cookie recipe that is worse after baking.

French Lace Cookies ½ cup light corn syrup ½ cup shortening ⅔ cup packed brown sugar 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup finely chopped pecans Heat oven to 375°. Have cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Heat corn syrup, shortening, and brown sugar to boiling in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and gradually stir in flour. Then mix in the pecans. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls about 3 to 4 inches apart onto cookie sheet. To keep the batter from hardening between batches, perch the saucepan over a smaller pot of simmering water. Or, place a sheet of parchment paper onto the counter and drop teaspoon-size portions of dough onto it until you've used up all the batter-- don't worry about giving them room to spread. Let them sit for a minute or two to firm up. Then lift them off the paper and place them onto (paper-lined!) pans to bake, one batch at a time. Bake about 5 minutes or until set (they will still be bubbly on the pan-- you may not think they look done). Cool 3 to 5 minutes on the pan. Then slide the pan out from under the cookies, letting the whole paper sheet land on the countertop. Then allow to cool completely. Drizzle with melted chocolate when cooled, if desired. If you wish, you can roll these cookies up instead of serving them flat. Roll them around a wooden spoon handle (or other object of choice) as soon as they're barely cooled enough to handle (they need to be very hot). If they crack, put them back in the oven to re-soften and try again. Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook, 1991

Betty Crocker's 40^th Anniversary Edition Cookbook, 1991

Today we're making another recipe I always saw when flipping through Mom's Betty Crocker book, always thought would be really nice, but never actually tried. Don't they look almost as pretty as the pizzelles?

As it happens, I've made the pizzelles too.

Like all good American things, these cookies start with shortening and corn syrup. I didn't know whether to turn on the burner or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's never a good sign when your cookie dough (or whatever this is) has a slick of melted fat on top. But I figured that since following the directions got us in this mess, following the rest of the directions should get us out of it.

The recipe tells us to "gradually" add the flour and the pecans to the boiling-hot mixture. Usually, flour siezes into gummy clumps when you add it to something this hot, but I gave it a try anyway. It worked, which shouldn't surprise me. Say what you will about Betty Crocker's taste (especially from the fifties to the seventies), her recipes always work. 

As we noted a few recipes ago, I've come to appreciate nonstick pots after years of resenting that you're not supposed to use an electric mixer in one. I think this is another recipe that really makes you appreciate nonstick pots, even if you have to fret about scratching them.

When I added the pecans and tried a test spoonful, our dough (or whatever it is) tasted like half-decent pralines. And it looked like pralines when I dropped spoonfuls onto the pan.

The cookies spread a lot, which I understand is how they're supposed to turn out.

You can tell they printed this recipe before every supermarket had parchment paper. In the early nineties, you had to grease a pan and carefully get a spatula under the still-molten cookies. These days, you can just slide the pan out from under the paper and let it land on the counter.

After they had cooled, I could see why they call them French lace cookies. They had a sort of wispy, lacy look to them.

I'm glad I tried one before drizzling any chocolate on them. They are great for looking at, but not good to eat. I thought they'd be super-delicate and crisp, but they were more like forgotten hard candy that melted and then re-hardened in a hot car. They tasted really bland and got stuck in your teeth. The unbaked cookies were decent (ish) brown-sugar fudge balls (or something like that), but I don't recommend putting them in an oven.

I'll give the Betty Crocker people credit: The recipe does exactly what it promises. It just isn't very good. And it made me want to make pralines because the raw dough was so close to being good ones.

Second-Stab Saturday: It turns out rice pudding doesn't like the stovetop

Today, we're trying and failing to make rice pudding without an oven.

Rice Pudding 3 cups milk 1 tablespoon corn starch 2 eggs, separated 1 pinch salt ⅓ cup sugar 1 cup cooked rice 1 teaspoon vanilla ¼ cup sugar (for meringue) Heat oven to 350°. Grease a medium-sized baking dish. Place it in a larger, empty pan. Have the egg yolks ready in a medium bowl, set aside. Cook milk and cornstarch ten minutes in double boiler, or over low heat if you're really good at preventing anything from sticking to the bottom of the pot. (You may want to mix the cornstarch with a little bit of the milk before putting it all in the pot-- it prevents having to chase lumps with a spoon.) After the time is up, start whisking the egg yolks, then slowly pour in about half the milk, beating very hard the whole time. Return to the pot. Add the salt, sugar, rice, and vanilla. Pour into the baking dish. Set on the oven rack and pour boiling water into the bigger pan around it. Bake in hot water until thickened (mine took 45 minutes). When it's ready, beat the egg whites until frothy. Gradually add the sugar, beating as you go. Continue beating until stiff peaks form. Carefully spread onto the pudding (no need to let the pudding cool first). Bake until golden on top, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. I thought this was better the second day (even if the meringue didn't look nearly as nice). Note: If desired, skip the meringue and just put whipped cream on top. Undated newspaper clipping, Chicago area (probably 1930s-1940s), credited to "Mrs. B. E. B."

When last we made rice pudding my great-grandmother literally cut-and-pasted from the newspaper, we asked if it really has to be baked. It seemed like it would come out just as well in a saucepan without heating the oven. And I really wanted it to come out just as good in a saucepan because this is the first rice pudding I've actually liked and summer is coming.  

The easiest way seemed the best: get it all in the pot and heat it up. Unfortunately, the easiest way gave us a lot of little egg globules that refused to mix with everything else.

After whisking everything together very hard and adding the rice, we were ready to take this to the stove.

We cooked this until it passed the finger-swipe test. (That's where you swipe your finger across a custard-coated spoon and see if it leaves a line.) It was runnier than I wanted, but I put it in the refrigerator to hope it thickened more as it cooled.

The next day, it was hopelessly drippy. You'd never know I cooked it.

Instead of throwing out the pudding, I waited until the next time I was baking something. (Since the eggs were cooked, this could afford to wait a week in the fridge.) Then I slid the rice pudding into the oven next to dinner. It didn't really set, but it firmed enough to actually serve. (I skipped the meringue because it looked terrible and tasted pointless last time.) Since you already have to scoop it into bowls instead of slicing to serve, I was able to stir in the good vanilla after baking it without cooking any of it away.

Before I risk closing with too happy an ending, I have to note that the leftover pudding got extremely runny after a few days in the refrigerator. There's probably some deep-level chemistry going on here because this didn't like getting cooked twice. So even though we're reaching the end of baking season (on this side of the equator at least), you should probably put this in the oven like the original directions say. 

However, I still think it's better without a meringue on top.

Chocolate Cookies: Best when frozen

The next time I visit anyone who lives in the Carolinas, I'm making them take us to Harris Teeter.

Chocolate Cookies 1¼ cups sugar 1 cup butter 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups flour ⅓ cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ tsp salt (if butter is unsalted) 1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips, if desired Melt butter in a large bowl, getting it very hot. Then whisk in the cocoa powder and let stand until it comes back to room temperature and firms up. (If desired, you can skip this step and just stir the cocoa powder into everything else. But getting the butter hot and then letting the cocoa sit in it draws out more chocolate flavor.) Heat oven to 375°. Have paper or foil-lined baking sheets ready. Cream sugar and butter. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add flour, baking soda, and salt (if using), stirring just until mixed. (If using an electric mixer, mix in the flour on low speed.) Stir in chocolate chips, if desired. (These cookies are so rich on their own, you might want to bake half the dough and add chips to the rest. Then you can try it both ways.) Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2-inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375°F for 8-11 minutes, or until set. They will not look done. Remove them from the oven anyway. Cool 1 minute on the pan before removing. Source: Harris Teeter sugar bag

This recipe makes a lot of cookies, so naturally I cut it in half. This meant I get to inaugurate my new kitchen toy: a one-sixth measuring cup! I'm so glad its first use is chocolate.

Someone 3D printed this for me. It's not not dishwasher safe, but I am willing to welcome it anyway. I only had to send off the dimensions, which another friend had worked out for me. I do know enough math to figure out the dimensions of a cylinder with given volume x, but the rounded bottom threw me off. And I wanted it to be a bit rounded at the bottom because who wants to gouge ingredients out of a sharp corner? 

Anyway, for those who either have 3D printers at home or know someone who does, here are the dimensions so you can have your very own: 

Moving on to everything else we needed to measure, we soon found out why Harris Teeter printed this recipe on their sugar labels. You use half the bag to make these cookies.

The dough was reassuringly firm. I've found that if cookie dough is too sticky to handle, it inevitably bakes into a runny mess. But these cookies were actually acting like cookies instead of future hot dough puddles.

The recipe says to drop by rounded spoons. But our dough was firm enough to shape into balls, so I did that with a few of them. The balled cookies came out just a little bit smoother on top, but I don't think it matters enough to bother. The spooned ones were just fine. They might even be a bit cuter with their crinkled tops.

Balled on the left, spoon-dropped on the right.

These were like Harris Teeter's brownies but in cookie form. They're not an intense chocolate, but more like a chocolate-flavored toffee. They were so crisp on the outside you'd almost think I rolled them in sugar first. Contrary to the official ingredient list, I think these were better without the chocolate chips in them. These cookies were, as I've heard people say, "plenty good enough" without stirring anything else in.

Also, as we found out after putting the extras away, they are amazing right out of the freezer. It's nice to have a frozen chocolate lift on hand, if a bit dangerous to know it's there.

Prune-Pecan Soufflé: It's better than you think

Spring is here, strawberries are in season, and we are stewing prunes!

Pecan-Prune Souffle 1 (8-oz) package prunes 3 egg whites Pinch of salt ⅓ cup granulated sugar ½ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon vanilla ⅔ cup coarsely ground pecans Cook the prunes in simmering water until very soft. Depending on the prunes, this can take anywhere from five to thirty minutes. When they're done, coarsely chop them in a food processor or hand-cranked grinder. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Heat oven to 325°. Grease a souffle dish (I used the insert from a rice cooker). Beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. Continue beating while you gradually sprinkle in the sugar. Beat until the whites are glossy and the sugar is dissolved. Fold the egg whites into the prunes in two or three additions. Then fold in the cinnamon, vanilla and nuts. Turn into the dish. Bake 20 to 30 minutes. Serve at once with whipped cream, hard sauce (see below) or a custard sauce made with the egg yolks. For extra presentation, place in sherbet glasses and top each portion with a pecan half. Serves six to eight. Miss Mary Crow, 511 5th ave, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia Inquirer Recipe Exchange; November 8, 1935; page 14

Hard Sauce ¼ cup butter 1 tsp. vanilla ½ tsp. lemon extract ⅛ tsp. salt 1 tbsp. boiling water About 1¼ cups sifted powdered sugar Cream butter, beating until very soft and light. Stir in the vanilla, lemon extract, salt, and water. (They won't quite incorporate yet, but get them as mixed as possible.) Beat in the powdered sugar a little at a time until you have a very thick mixture. (You basically are making buttercream icing that is too firm to spread on a cake.) Transfer to a plate and shape into a flat patty. Refrigerate at least half an hour. When serving, cut in thin slices and place on top of warm pudding. Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

Recipe Exchange; Philadelphia Inquirer; November 8, 1935

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

Now that we can buy cheap out-of-season produce (or at least, it was cheap-ish before the war), we have more or less forgotten how to turn dried fruit into lovely things. Sure, we still have a few recipes like oatmeal-raisin cookies. But given where global events are headed, we might want to collectively relearn how to expressively use dried fruits. Our half-century run of December blueberries may have been bombed to a halt.

So we meet again: boiled prunes!

At first I thought ramming wet prunes through a meat grinder would only yield a drippy mess on the floor. But (short of getting out and subsequently cleaning the food processor) I couldn't think of any other way. Would you want stewed prunes slithering all over a cutting board?

Just like last time, this step of our prune whip actually looked kind of pretty. I loved the contrast between the dark, shiny fruit pulp and the pure white meringue. I may make a prune pavlova next time the holiday season rolls around. As long as no one asks what's in it until after they've tried it, I think everyone would like it.

As I knew would happen, our beautiful study in color contrast turned into a sand-colored mess with brown stringy bits.

And now we get to our other featured ingredient: pecans! Miss Mary Crow thought we should use walnuts, but I am allergic to them. Walnuts make me break out in rants.

Our sample spoonful tasted a lot better than I expected. Our last prune whip was underwhelming and bland, but this was actually good. Unfortunately, it was about as ugly as the applesauce-date mallow.

The last time we made a souffle, we had to use the insert from a rice cooker. But these days, with a full complement of pans crammed into the cabinets, we were able to select the perfect baking dish for this. It was... wait for it... the insert from the rice cooker.

I made sure our souffle would have plenty of rise in its pan. No one wants to clean burnt prunes off the oven floor. (Also, I don't want to break my 7-month streak of not having to take down the kitchen smoke detector.) This souffle barely puffed up, which hopefully meant it wouldn't dramatically shrink.

Don't you love when your dessert matches the table?

Next, it was time to put on the "hard sauce," which apparently is a booze-free brandy butter. In other words, it's buttercream frosting that is too thick to smear onto a cake. 

I borrowed a recipe from our favorite World's Fair giveaway book, Mrs. Mary Martensen's Recipes. She says "The exact amount of sugar cannot be stated, but the sauce must be stiff enough to stand alone." So I added enough to make our tiny little mound of butter hold up a spoon.

Our hard sauce tasted like very lemony buttercream, and was delicious as it melted and soaked into the prunes.

The prune souffle tasted unexpectedly like oatmeal-raisin cookie dough. I shouldn't be too surprised. Prunes taste a lot like oversized raisins, and the pecans and cinnamon completed the flavor.

As an afternote, I put the leftovers in the refrigerator overnight. (We do not have "six to eight persons" eager for prunes.) By the next day, the souffle had shrunk to a little prune puck. 

It's a little hard to appreciate the shrinkage, so let's add a dinner fork for scale.

So if you want to make your prunes serve six to eight, you probably shouldn't make this ahead.