Baked on a Wood Cook Stove!

So easy! Simple ingredients! And it will look like it came from an expensive bakery!

The meringue on her second pie made from this exact same recipe was half this high. Later in post I will explain the mistakes we made and how to avoid them. It was still yummylicious!

My grandmother was one of those people from the Great Depression of the 1930s. They were simple country people, and didn’t have much. But she loved to cook! And my oh my, could she cook!

I can still see her flitting around that old farmhouse kitchen. She wore raggedy old dresses and shoes with holes in them. Her hair was always balled up in a French bun. And she was tall and thin as a rail. I wish I had the secret to that, because she ate something sweet every day!

There would always be a pie at her house. She kept them in a big waxed apple box under the bed in the winter months. It was like being in a refrigerator!

And if we were having a Homecoming or All-day Singing at the church, you could count on her showing up with pies, cakes, and fried chicken! In those days, we had long wooden tables outside under oak shade trees– tables spread with enough food to feed an army. I remember when I was about 10 years old at the Tabernacle Homecoming in Pine Valley, Mississippi, I ate so much that I made myself sick!

Her favorite pies to bake were chocolate and egg custard. Bella has decided to bake the Chocolate Cream Pie for you today.

Tip: Make the sugar, water, cornstarch mix before you start the pie so it will have time to cool completely while you make your pie.

To make the base for the meringue, you will need these ingredients:

• 1 T. Cornstarch
• 3 T. Sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 t. Lemon juice—or vinegar if you don’t have lemon juice
• 1/2 c. Water 

• Boil: until clear and thick–will look like vaseline.

• Set aside to cool. The picture below does not show how clear it will look.

Chocolate Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. cocoa
• 1/4 c. cornstarch
• 3 well beaten egg yolks
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/4 t. salt
• 2 c. milk
• 1 t. vanilla
• baked pie shell

Method:

• Mix: (stir well to combine)

1/2 c. Cocoa

1/4 c. Cornstarch (or) 1/2 c. Flour

1c. Sugar

1/4 t. Salt 

• Beat: 3 egg yolks until very frothy and lemon colored and stir them into 2 c. Milk
• Add: Milk and egg gradually to the cocoa sugar mixture.  Mix thoroughly. 

• Cook:  until thick (10-15 min.)—stirring constantly

• Add:1 t. Vanilla
• Pour: into baked pie shell

• Top with meringue and bake at 325 until lightly browned.

Meringue

• Beat: 3 large egg whites until stiff peaks form
• Gradually add: Your cornstarch, water, sugar mixture—beating while you add–you have set this aside to cool.
• Add: 6 T sugar one at a time—beat one minute on high after each T.
• Beat: 8 minutes after you add the last tablespoon of sugar—(for a total of 14-15 minutes)
• Bake: 325 degrees until golden brown 

This is a photo of the second pie. The meringue was half the height of the first.

Here are the 3 things we did wrong with the second pie:

• When making the base for the meringue, I ran out of cornstarch and we tried to use flour instead. It did NOT work–so do not try to substitute flour for cornstarch in this recipe.
• Bella added 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to the base rather than the 1 teaspoon that the recipe called for.
• We did NOT beat for one full minute after adding each T. sugar to the beaten egg whites. Be sure to beat the full minute after each addition of sugar. Be sure to beat oh HIGH speed for at least 14-15 minutes total.

Other things that may cause your meringue to be half a mile high–not ONE MILE HIGH!

• Not beating whites long enough before you start to add your sugar base
• using cold eggs–always use egg whites that are room themperature
• Getting any grease or oil into your mixing bowl–even the tiniest residue from bowl that has not been washed thoroughly can cause failure
• getting the tiniest drop of the yolk in your whites
• baking at too low a temperature–need at least 325-350 degrees
• overbearing the egg whites before you add the base–once the stiff peaks form, add the base. You do not want a grainy texture. If this has happened, the best thing to do is throw them out and start over. I KNOW–I KNOW! Eggs are 7 dollars a dozen!

I don’t know about you, but with the cost of groceries today, I had rather bake my own pie crust and save that $4.50! And this one is so easy! You will probably never buy a ready-made crust again!

You can substitute butter for the crisco, but it is harder to work with. You will definitely need to refrigerate several hours before you roll it out if you use butter. Some people prefer lard.

If you are making a one-crust pie like this Chocolate Cream Pie, you can freeze the dough for the second crust! I flatten out the second ball with my hands until it makes about a 6 inch circle and freeze it in a quart freezer bag.

Tip: Place the dough ball inside the freezer bag before you flatten it. So easy! No mess!

Weekly Timeless Treasure

This little blue butter dish belonged to Bella’s great-great-great grandmother, Maude Williams. It set on my grandmother’s mantle at the old farm house when I was a child. It is one of the family heirlooms that I love the most. The house where we live today is within half a mile of where Maude Williams lived in the late 1800’s. Bella and her big sister Abby are the 8th generation to live in our little creek bottom. Roots run deep!

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