For one pie, take a couple of good sized fresh lemons, squeeze out the juice, and mix it with half a pint of molasses, or sufficient sugar to make the juice sweet. Chop the peel fine, line a deep pie plate with your pastry, then sprinkle on a layer of your chopped lemon peel, turn in part of the mixed sugar or molasses, and juice, then cover the whole with pie crust, rolled very thin—put in another layer of peel, sweetened juice, and crust, and so on, till all the lemon is used. Cover the whole with a thick crust, and bake the pie about half an hour.
247. Cherry and Blackberry Pie.
Cherries and blackberries for pies should be ripe. Bake them in deep pie plates, sweeten them with sugar, and put in cloves or cinnamon to the taste. Bake them about half an hour.
Grapes make the best pies when very tender and green. If not very small, they should be stewed and strained, to get out the seeds, before they are made into pies—sweeten them to the taste when stewed. They do not require any spice. If made into a pie without stewing, put to each layer of grapes a thick layer of sugar, and a table-spoonful of water.
249. Currant and Gooseberry Pie.
Currants and gooseberries are the best for pies when of a full growth, just before they begin to turn red—they are tolerably good when ripe. Currants mixed with ripe raspberries or mulberries, make very nice pies. Green currants and gooseberries for pies are not apt to be sweet enough without the sugar is scalded in before they are baked, as the juice of the currants is apt to run out while they are baking, and leave the fruit dry. Stew them on a moderate fire, with a tea-cup of water to a couple of quarts of currants—as soon as they begin to break, add the sugar, and let it scald in a few minutes. When baked without stewing, put to each layer of fruit a thick layer of sugar. There should be as much as a quarter of a pound of sugar to a pint of currants, to make them sufficiently sweet. Green currant pies are good sweetened with molasses and sugar mixed.
Prunes that are too dry to eat without stewing, can be made into good pies. Turn enough boiling water on the prunes to cover them, set them on a few coals, and let them remain till swelled out plump. If there is not water sufficient to make a nice syrup for the pies, add more, and season them with cinnamon or cloves. The juice and grated peel of a lemon gives them a fine flavor. Add sugar to the taste, and bake them in deep pie plates.