For the Historical Food Fortnightly challenge 13 – pies, I baked a strawberry custard pie – a recipe from 1918.

Ingredients:

• fresh ripe strawberries
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup sugar (I used just 1/2 cup)
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 baked pie crust

As the recipe doesn’t state what dough to make, I made a shortcrust pastry with 325g flour, 250g butter and 125g sugar. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and bake the pie crust for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make the custard: Mix milk, sugar, egg yolkes and cornstarch, and cook until thickened. Place strawberry halves on top of the baked pie crust, and cover with custard. Beat egg whites with 65g sugar, and distribute the meringue on top of the custard. Bake for another 10 or 15 minutes until lightly browned.

It was too much dough for the pie, so I made blueberry meringue tartlets with the leftover shortcrust pastry.

We all found the strawberry meringue pie much too sweet, even though I’ve already reduced the amount of sugar. And as I feared the custard hasn’t thickened enough, so it flowed out like vanilla sauce. If I’d make this late-Edwardian pie again, I’d use much less sugar, and thicken the custard with more egg yolks or cornstarch.

Update: I made the Strawberry Custard Pie again.