Paul Richards' book of breads, cakes, pastries, ices and sweetmeats

Peaches and apricots are peeled, sliced and the stones removed; baked with a full cover and also like the sliced apple pie. For quinces, peel, core and slice the fruit, stew till tender. Half apples and half quinces makes a very nice pie. Bake like apple pie. 138.— BERRY PIES. All berries should be washed and picked over to remove sand and other impurities. Some berries contain very much juice, and for these berries it is best to put a thin layer of crumbs in bottom of the pie, before putting on the fruit, to retain the juice. The best way to make berry pies for hotels and restaurants is to make them like the English apple pie, in deep dishes, with a top cover only, and serve the pie in the dish. We used to make fine pies this way in New York hotels twenty years ago and they proved very good sellers. If berries are baked in the flat pies with top and bottom crust, the juice often makes the bottom soggy and soft. When cut into portions it runs out and much of it is lost; while in the deep dishes all the juice is retained, and a berry pie can be made with more fruit in it. Fill the dish with strawberries, raspberries, currants, blueberries, blackberries or grapes; sweeten to taste; wet the edge of the dish, put on a cover from top crust paste, make a few cuts in it, wash over and bake. To blue- and blackberries a little water may be added; the other berries named require no water. The gooseberry pies are baked with a full cover. 140.— RHUBARB PIE. The young tender stalks require no peeling; otherwise peel off the outer skin; cut up in small pieces. To each pound of rhubarb add twelve ounces of sugar and one ounce of cornstarch, the grated rind of one lemon or orange; mix well together and fill in the bottoms; bake with strips like the cranberry pie, or with a full cover. Puff paste may be used for strip covers. For a full cover the rich pie crust is better; it makes a better crust. Puff paste is too light and easily softens from the steam which arises during baking, and the crust gets soft after standing for sometime. 141.— BANANA PIE. Peel and slice the bananas very thin; add sugar, a little fresh butter, the juice of some oranges or lemons, and a pinch of allspice; or flavor with some good rum. Bake with a full crust, or with a meringue cover. 142.— PINEAPPLE PIE. Peel and core ripe pineapple and cut in thin slices; stew till clear in a light syrup; flavor with a little grated orange peel; let cool and bake with a strip cover like sliced apple pie. Grated canned pineapple may be used like other fruit. 143.— FRUIT MERINGUE PIES. All the fruit pies can be made into meringue pies by baking them open, without cover of any crust, and decorate with Meringue Paste No. 93. Put the paste in a bag, use a plain or star tube; put on strips in lattice fashion and a border around the edge; dust with powdered sugar and put back in the oven for a minute to color. The other way to make fruit meringue pies is to bake the bottoms, as described in No. 74, fill with the ready stewed fruit, put on the meringue paste and give some color in the oven. 144.— BOSTON LEMON PIE. One pound of sugar, sixteen eggs, six lemons. Bake the bottoms to a very light color. Grate the rind of four lemons on half of the sugar, add the yolks of the eggs and the juice of all the lemons, stir together on the fire till it thickens, then take off the fire. Beat the whites of eggs and make a meringue with the other half of the sugar. Mix yolks and whites together and fill in the baked crusts; sift some powdered sugar over and put in a slack oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes. The pie puffs up and falls a little after baking, but makes a delicious pie. 145.— LEMON MERINGUE PIE.