Rhubarb Meringue Pie

Just when I was thinking that there was nothing new under the spring sun for rhubarb desserts, I encountered this wonderful vintage recipe. Unlike most rhubarb pie recipes, where the rhubarb remains chunky, this creates a smooth filling (think applesauce, only with rhubarb). The filling is cooked first, then poured into a baked pie crust.

It is a very, very delicious pie, with the sweet and tart flavors characteristic of rhubarb. It's not hard to prepare, but not super easy, either. But so worth it, especially for its novelty. Even though I ruined the meringue, it still worked. (Hint: Don't try to wing this, and use a recipe instead, If you follow a recipe and don't overbeat the meringue as I did, you will have a much better looking pie.)

Let's get started. The rhubarb I used was purchased at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market (couldn't resist the ruby red stalks) and flown back in my carry on luggage.

Cut the rhubarb into small pieces. You'll only need two cups, which was about three very large stalks.

Place the rhubarb in a two-quart (or medium size) saucepan, add sugar and butter. Cover and cook for about ten minutes, until the rhubarb chunks disappear.

Mix up the filling sauce -- egg yolks (reserve the white for the meringue), cornstarch, sugar, salt and heavy cream. Temper it (warm it up) by adding some of the hot rhubarb liquid to it before pouring it in the saucepan to prevent scrambled eggs.

Cook this mixture until it's thick.

Before you start all of this, prepare and blind bake an eight- or nine-inch pie crust. (Recipe below.)

Pour the filling in the pie crust. It was not a super generous amount, typical of mid-20th century recipes, but with the meringue, it will fill out nicely.

Make the meringue (the right way!) with the reserved egg whites and add on top of the filling.

Bake about ten minutes in a 350 F oven to brown the top.

Enjoy!

Production notes: I followed the recipe exactly, but have written it out since the card is a bit confusing.

Rhubarb Meringue Pie

2 c. chopped rhubarb
1 c. sugar + 1/4 c. sugar + sugar for meringue
2 T unsalted butter
2 eggs (separated)
1/4 c. heavy cream
1/2 t. salt
2 T cornstarch

1 baked pie crust (recipe below)

Place rhubarb, 1 c. sugar and butter in saucepan. Cover and cook until soft. The rhubarb will break down.
In a small bowl, combine egg yolks, 1/4 c. sugar, salt, cornstarch and heavy cream.  Whip to combine.
Add a few tablespoons of the hot rhubarb mixture to the cream mixture, and stir to combine.
Add the cream mixture to the saucepan while stirring.
Cook until thickened.
Pour into the pie crust.

Meringue
Make meringue with reserved egg whites. I screwed up the meringue, making it from memory, rushing as our dinner guest was ringing the doorbell! Look up a recipe to find a good one. One way to prevent overbeating the whites is to add a bit of cream of tartar to the mixture at the beginning, a step I skipped. Just be sure to seal the edges of the pie with the meringue to prevent weeping.

Bake the pie for ten to 12 minutes in a 350F oven, just to brown the meringue.

My favorite pie crust recipe (makes two crusts)

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 stick of cold butter, cut into small pieces
6 T. cold Crisco, cut into pieces
2 t. sugar
1 t. salt
3 - 6 T. cold water

Place dry ingredients in a food processor and whirl to blend.  Add butter and Crisco and process until it resembles cornmeal. Add the water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, through the feed tube, mixing just a second or two after each addition. Remove from the bowl directly into a plastic bag and smoosh it all together. 
To blind bake it, roll out about half the dough into a circle and transfer into a pie plate. Crimp the edges.  (Reserve the other half for your next pie) I roll the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. Keep the top layer of plastic wrap on the pie (I do this with Costco wrap) or line it with aluminum foil. Fill the center with pie weights of dry beans and bake in a 425 F oven for ten minutes.  Remove the lining and weights, prick the bottom with the tines of a fork and return to the oven for about ten minutes until it is lightly browned.
Note: If you have time, refrigerate the crust before baking for at least an hour to help retain the crimping on the edge.

Rhubarb Torte

I've made (and blogged about) a lot of rhubarb desserts over the past five years. You can find them here (custard pie) and here (steamed) and here (muffins) and here (bread) and here (pie) and here (cake) and here (crunch) and here (pudding).

It's one of the first local vegetables to appear in early spring at the farmer's market, and there are a lot of vintage recipes for rhubarb in my collection. I'm figuring that mid-20th century housewives felt the same excitement -- something fresh! -- and that it was relatively inexpensive and extremely versatile.

Rhubarb Torte was a bit of a failure, and hardly blog-worthy or so I thought -- until the DD came for a visit and couldn't stop eating it (see below), all the time insisting that she doesn't like rhubarb. Go figure. This rhubarb torte (like most rhubarb desserts) is a delightful combination of sweet and tart. The batter forms an almost meringue-like topping and the combination of walnuts and rhubarb is really, really good.

I'm bringing you this recipe with some caveats. Mostly, the crust has the taste and mouth feel of cardboard and you need to "sling" the pan (line it with parchment or aluminum foil overhanging the sides so you can lift the torte out of the pan before cutting). Otherwise, base cements itself to the pan and you'll practically need a chisel to remove it. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

The first rhubarb of the season is green; a bit later the stalks are red. So this looks like celery, but trust me, you don't want to eat it without first cooking it with sugar.

Mix up the batter...

And add in the nuts and rhubarb.

Pour the mixture over the base (see more on that below) and using an offset spatula or butter knife, smooth until it reaches the edges of the pan.

Bake about 40 minutes.  The fruit will be bubbling at the edges and the top will be a light golden brown.

The rhubarb hater, below.

Production notes: Replace the base with a pie crust dough and bake with pie weights (or dry beans) for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Otherwise, follow the recipe exactly as below.

Salted Peanut Cookies

If you're a peanut butter cookie lover, then you'll want to try these Salted Peanut Cookies from a vintage recipe. The strong peanut butter flavor is derived entirely from the peanuts, which also add a lovely texture to the cookies. The sugar coating on top is the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Like most cookies, the batter is a cinch to whip up (providing you've left the butter to soften on the counter). The time suck comes from baking sheet after sheet of these. But you can always bake what you need (as I did for a dinner that night) and leave the dough in the refrigerator to bake at your leisure.

(Full disclosure: I am not a fan of peanut butter cookies at all, mostly because of their crumbly texture, but found these absolutely addicting!)

Mix the peanuts in at the end.

Using your hands, roll into one-inch balls. I always wear gloves for this task, but there's no need to.

Press the cookies down with the bottom of a drinking glass dipped in water and then sugar. I skipped this part, just sprinkling sugar on the cookies, and the results were not as good.

Bake until the bottoms are medium brown.

Voila!

Production notes: I used all butter and light brown sugar. Do not overbake, as they harden while they cool. These don't spread much on the sheet, so you can bake a lot at one time.

Impossible Pie

What if you could create a luscious coconut custard pie simply by blending together some common ingredients? Impossible, you say?
It is possible and that's the beauty of this vintage recipe called, appropriately enough, Impossible Pie. It's truly simple and quick and foolproof, a wonderful shortcut without using any real shortcuts (i.e., processed ingredients that wouldn't be found in your grandmother's pantry).

The mis-en-place is below. You probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen.

Blend everything together, except the coconut, which is added at the end.

Pour into a greased pie plate and bake in a preheated oven.

And voila!

Production notes: I followed this exactly, and made sure the butter was very soft, Place the filled pie plate on a larger tray before baking, to prevent spillage in the oven. There was a crust at the bottom, but because I didn't use a metal pie pan, it wasn't as pronounced as it could have been. I also baked a few minutes longer than recommended, as the pie seemed rather jiggly at 45 minutes.

Overnight Cold Water Buns

 

You know that saying, everything looks better in the morning? That is certainly the case for these poorly named but absolutely delicious rolls. Overnight Cold Water Buns, while requiring a bit of planning, greet you in the morning with their rich, buttery and brioche-like goodness.  

Yeast-risen baked goods take time, and it was fairly common in the mid-20th century for housewives to make dough the day before in order to have the waiting time occur overnight. This recipe dates from about 1945.

Begin with yeast (even though Michael Pollen in his Cooked series on Netflix does not believe in commercial yeast).  Yeast is your true friend -- no matter how much (within reason) you abuse it or ignore it, it almost always comes through. Just make sure the water you soak it in is pleasantly lukewarm, about 110 to 115 F.

When it begins to foam and bubble, it's ready. The only way your true friend will fail is if the yeast is too old (dead), or the water you add is too hot.  If it fails to "grow," the simply start with a new package of yeast.

Mix in the butter, flour and and other ingredients. Put the dough in a bowl to let it rise.

My dough was too sticky...so I added some flour late in the game. (I should have added it during the mixing phase.) It was still too sticky, but the end result didn't suffer.

Put some dough in greased muffin tins.

I decided to go with the muffin tins when I realized the dough was too sticky to maintain the bun shape.

Let them rise overnight on the counter.

So the buns did form a loaf instead of maintaining their individuality. No problem in the end -- it was delicious sliced and used for French toast!

Production notes: I didn't begin these until after 5 p.m. (instead of the 3 p.m.instruction) and still had plenty of time. I added the recommended 7 1/2 cups of flour and it wasn't enough. Next time, I'd add more flour. I used two sticks of softened butter. I formed the rolls and left them sitting on the counter as instructed, and baked them the next morning in a 400 F oven.  Even though these are called cold water buns, there's no cold water in them!