There are three recipes for Lemon Pie in the Berlin Cook Book (1906). Back in 2012 I made Mrs. Oscar Rumpel’s recipe. So which of the other two should I try? I have to watch how much dairy I consume so I’m going to try Mrs. Chas. Adloff‘s recipe for Lemon Pie. Her recipe uses water while the other other one uses milk. Otherwise they are quite similar. You should appreciate that tackling this recipe takes bravery on my part. I make terrible pastry and don’t really like most pies. The exception is lemon meringue pie. I would love to make a pie as well as the ones my grandmother served long ago.
I’m going to leave the pastry to you. Use your favourite recipe – even the one on the Crisco package is fine for early 20th century baking. Crisco came out with their first recipe booklet in 1912. Now on to the filling.
I took the lemons and butter out earlier to warm up a bit. I washed the lemons and rolled them on the counter to release more juice before grating them. Once the lemons were at room temperature I squeezed the juice. I separated the four eggs while they were still cold and then left them to sit.
Now it was time to put it all together. I added 2 cups of sugar to 2 cups of water in a saucepan and turned up the heat. Once the sugar and water had boiled I turned down the heat and added the tablespoon of butter. I added the zest and lemon juice next. But what to do with the corn starch and egg yolks. If I added them in to this boiling hot mixture they could become scrambled eggs and lumpy cornstarch. I left the pan to cool a bit as I measured the two tablespoons of corn starch into a small bowl. I added some of the liquid to the cornstarch to create a liquid. Then I poured it slowing into the pot and kept stirring. It was basically the same with the eggs. I beat the egg yolks. Next I added a bit of the hot mixture to the yolks and stirred well. Then I slowly added the yolks to the mixture stirring the entire time. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Do I cook it for a while? I decided to let it simmer while I blind baked my pie crust.
Once the crust was ready I poured my somewhat thin cooked mixture into the one pie shell and discovered I had lots of the filling left over. Perhaps this is supposed to make two pies despite the recipe saying one crust. Or did that mean without a top crust. Too late now. I only had one crust ready. I put my filled pie back in the oven at 350F and left it to bake for about 20 minutes. While it baked and I hoped it would solidify, I started the next step.
The recipe calls for frosting the pie. It doesn’t mean a nice butter cream icing. It means meringue and that’s another of those baking processes that I don’t do well. At least not on pies. I added some cream of tartar to the egg whites and began whipping them until they were nice soft peaks then I added sugar and whipped some more until I had a nice fluffy meringue. It was time to add it to the top of the pie. It looked lovely. Back into the oven. I got distracted and the meringue browned a bit too much but it still looked good. This gave me hope. I had to wait for it to cool a bit before I could try a sample.
I’m assuming Mrs. Chas. Adloff is not a young woman. Her recipe is just a little too vague to come from the domestic science generation. I was correct. Sophia Hopp was born in Berlin Ontario in 1869. Her parents were from Germany and must have lived for a bit in Wisconsin as the eldest child was born there. By the time Sophia was born they were living in Berlin and her father worked as a labourer. Sophia had one brother and four sisters (three also have recipes in the cookbook). Most of them worked in local factories. The 1891 census indicates Sophia was working in a button factory. By the 1901 census she was working as a stitcher in a shirt factory. A few months later 31 year old Sophia married upholsterer Charles Adloff (age 39). His first wife had died the year before so Sophia became step mother to his 15 year old daughter Matilda. Sophia was still a relatively new wife when the cookbook was published in 1906. By 1911 the household included her mother-in-law as well as 22 year old Matilda who was working as a collar turner in a shirt factory. They lived at 56 Alma Street in Berlin. Ten years later the household remains much the same although her mother in law has died.
Soon it was time to taste my pie. I cut through the pie and discovered liquid! Further baking had not improved my filling. The end result is ugly and messy but very delicious. Someday maybe I’ll make the perfect Lemon Pie but it won’t be with this recipe. Instead I’ve made a delicious lemon sauce which will be useful as a cake drizzle or on ice cream. That filling is sweet but also has the wonderful tart lemon flavour. I certainly hope Sophia had greater success with her Lemon Pie than
LEMON PIE
Mrs. Chas. Adloff
Take the rind and juice of 2 lemons, 2 cups white sugar, 2 cups water, yolks of 4 eggs. Boil sugar and water, then add 1 tablespoon butter, then the lemons and eggs and 2 tablespoons cornstarch. Use the white for frosting. Bake with 1 crust.
366dayswiththeberlincookbook 