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Mince Pie

A historical recipe from Bread and cake baking, by Frederick D. Hauptmann (1877).

A historical recipe

Bread and cake baking: A collection of recipes for making bread, cakes, pies, ice cream, &c., by Frederick D. Hauptmann (1877). Project Gutenberg eBook #78839.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From Bread and cake baking, by Frederick D. Hauptmann (1877). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #78839 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78839). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

United Kingdom. Associated with United Kingdom by curated dish list: mince pie (confidence 0.75). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. Mince meat procured from the groceries is generally too thick, and should be thinned with the addition of sweet cider.
  2. The best mince meat is made of beef, suet, apples, brown sugar, seedless raisins, currants, the grated yellow of lemons, a little citron, ground cinnamon, cloves and allspice, good sweet cider, and enough Port Wine to impart a good taste;
  3. the beef, apples, &c., to be chopped fine and then all thoroughly mixed.
  4. Lemon Pies, No.
  5. 1.
  6. Six good sized and fresh lemons, 3 lbs.
  7. white sugar, 6 eggs, 1 pint milk, ½ lb.
  8. corn starch, 2 oz.
  9. fresh butter, a pinch of salt, and 3 qts.
  10. water;
  11. put the sugar in a bowl, and grate on it the yellow of the lemons;
  12. don’t use the white, rind or seeds, or the pies will be bitter.
  13. Also squeeze the juice of the lemons on the sugar.
  14. Set the milk on the stove to boil, beat the eggs and corn starch together, and when the milk boils put this in, stirring briskly;
  15. then add the sugar and lemon juice.
  16. Be careful not to get it scorched.
  17. Put into a bowl to cool, and when cool fill the pies, cover and bake;
  18. or make the custard a little thicker, and fill the pies, not putting any crust on them.
  19. When baked, beat up some whites of eggs, add pulverized sugar, and spread this over the pies, and set in the oven to brown.
  20. Lemon Pies, No.
  21. 2.
  22. One good sized fresh lemon, 1 egg, ½ lb.
  23. white sugar, 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of flour, and 1 pint water;
  24. grate the yellow of the lemon into a bowl, put in the flour, then the egg, add a very little water, and beat this smooth with a spatula.
  25. Then add the sugar and water, stir well, fill the pies pretty full, wet the rim of the pie before putting on the top crust, and cut a good many holes in the top crust.
  26. This makes a good pie, but it sometimes boils out considerable while baking.