Recipe: New England Cream Pie (In Search of Real Cream Pie)

NEW ENGLAND CREAM PIE

Make sure that you use a very deep pie plate in order to accommodate the full quart of cream.

FOR THE PIE SHELL:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, left in the freezer for 30 minutes
3 tablespoons shortening (Crisco) put in the freezer for 30 minutes
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water

FOR THE FILLING:
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 quart heavy (whipping) cream, non-ultra pasteurized preferred
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

MAKING THE PIE SHELL:
Mix flour, salt and sugar in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Scatter butter pieces over the flour mixture, tossing to coat butter with a little of the flour. Cut butter into flour with 5 one-second pulses. Add shortening and continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal, about 4 more one-second pulses.

Turn mixture into a medium bowl. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of water over the mixture. With blade of a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix, then press down on dough with the broad side of the spatula until dough sticks together, adding up to 1 tablespoon more water if dough will not come together. Shape dough into a ball with your hands, then flatten into a 4-inch wide disc. Dust lightly with flour, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling.

If dough has spent more than one hour in the refrigerator, let it warm up a few minutes on the counter before proceeding. Roll out dough and place into an 9-inch deep dish pie pan. Push dough gently down the sides of the pan. Trim dough around edge of pan leaving a 1/2-inch border. Fold excess dough underneath edge and shape edge using a fork or fingers. Place in refrigerator for at least 40 minutes. (If you are not experienced with pie dough, I recommend that the dough be refrigerated overnight. This will allow time for the dough to properly hydrate, making it easier to roll out and prebake.) Place in freezer for 20 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Remove from freezer and fit a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil (the extra-wide rolls are best; if the foil is too narrow, use two sheets) over shell, pressing foil carefully into sides of pie plate and against the sides. Add pie weights or dried beans, enough to generously cover bottom of pie plate. Pile up the weights around the sides of the shell to help hold them in place.

Bake on lower rack for about 20 minutes or until sides of pie shell are set. (They should not be moist and should be firm.) Remove foil and bake another 7 minutes.

BAKING THE PIE:
While crust is baking, gently whisk together the first 3 filling ingredients in a heavy saucepan and then heat, stirring frequently, until mixture begins to steam. Remove from heat. Whisk the eggs in an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup or any other large heatproof pitcher.

When the pie shell is almost ready, whisk 1/2 cup of the heated cream mixture into the eggs and then whisk in the remaining hot cream. Open the oven door and set the a timer to 3 minutes.

With the oven rack pulled a third of the way out, pour in the cream mixture and very gently slide rack back into place. Leave oven door open just a crack until the timer goes off. (The door will have been open for a total of 3 minutes.) Close oven door and bake for 5 1/2 hours. (The top will be a caramel color and when jiggled, the cream will still be wobbly.) Turn off oven and let pie bake an additional 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven, sprinkle top with freshly grated nutmeg, and cool on a wire rack for 2 hours. (The pie will still not be completely set at this point.)

Chill in the refrigerator until set. This pie is best served either cold or cool in small slices. It goes well with strong coffee.

IN SEARCH OF REAL CREAM PIE:
One of my neighbors, Jean, inherited a recipe from her mother, Dorothy, which in turn came from her aunt, Nellie Newton. It is called cream pie and is made from fresh cream from a Jersey cow, sugar, nutmeg and one egg. This is something quite apart from a custard pie, which usually has one egg per cup of milk or cream or the typical American diner cream pie which is thickened with cornstarch and topped with whipped cream. This is a real cream pie: one quart of heavy cream baked with just one egg, one tablespoon flour and one cup of sugar. Unlike its more heavyhanded cousins, this is a delicate dessert with firm, clean slices - modest, spare and unique.

This recipe is made at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Jean has regaled me over the years with the uncertainties of this dessert. Whether the cream would set up properly was always a bit chancey, the crust was usually soggy, and if the mixture bubbled during baking, the texture would toughen and the flavor would change, tasting a bit like evaporated milk. I solved the crust problem by prebaking my pie shell and preheating the filling, which I do for all my custard pies. Even after a long spell in the oven, the crust was crisp. The bigger problem was to create a foolproof recipe, one that would always set up properly. Having tested a variety of baking temperatures, I found that the trick is to use a very low oven and a very long baking time. This produces a delicate, light custard, rich from the intense flavor of the Jersey cream. Even when I started out with a higher temperature for even 10 minutes, the cream would bubble and froth and the pie was ruined. After a dozen pies, I found that 250 degrees was best, with a whopping oven time of 5 1/2 hours. I also discovered that adding an additional tablespoon of flour and one more egg made this a foolproof recipe, the custard always setting up properly. The original recipe was unpredictable. I also reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup which allowed the natural flavor of the cream to come through.

You will note that this recipe is simple with no vanilla or other flavoring ingredients other than cream, sugar and nutmeg. This is a simple pie and, as Jean emphatically states, it should stay that way. Jean makes it with fresh Jersey cream, which of course is more flavorful than a pie made with ultra-pasteurized cream from a large dairy, although the latter still produces a very good pie. If you can, try to find an organic brand of cream, which I find has the most flavor. The good news is that supermarket cream is less rich, which produces a less cloying dessert.

Source: Christopher Kimball