*Premeditated Myrtle* is coming your way, along with Cook’s famous
Stansberry Pie, October 6, but you can get a head start with this authentic
original recipe, below!
*Cook’s Christian name was Harriet Stansberry, although I’d never heard her
called anything but Cook. I was six years old before I even realized she
had another name. One of Father’s favorite dishes was something we called
Stansberry Pie, and I once suffered a week of botanical confusion trying to
classify the elusive stansberry, which did not appear in any field guide,
taxonomy, or recipe book that I could find. *
*…It turned out to be a tart containing apple, strawberry, and rhubarb. It
was rather good, particularly warm out of the oven, with cream.*
*
—Premeditated Myrtle*
As Myrtle discovers, Stansberry is not a fruit (unlike* marionberry*), but
an old English surname with origins from the Yorkshire place name
Stainsborough. (You might have run across the more common spelling of
Stansbury—which, sadly, has no pie.) Stansberry also happens to be my
mother-in-law’s maiden name (Hi, Judy!)… and for this Myrtle Mondays post,
I’m sharing a variation on a family pie recipe, adapted, refined, and
reverse-engineered from its fictional counterpart by my husband, C.J.
The magnificent Stansberry Pie, from page to table
Myrtle notes that the Stansberry Pie of *Premeditated Myrtle* is in fact a
tart—which generally means it only has a bottom crust. But what is the
point of that? In my considered opinion, fruit pie is a thinly-veiled
excuse for indulging in pie crust, so double up on that pastry!
…But first, let’s talk about pie. In particular, *Victorian* pies. Or, to
be precise, where the Victorians got their pie recipes. The undisputed 19th
century authority on all things cookery was *Mrs. Beeton’s Book of
Household Management* by Isabella Beeton, who was married to the publisher
of *The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine*. Released in 1861, it became
enormously popular, with new editions revised and updated well into the
20th century. It remains in print today! At 25, Beeton herself was an
inexperienced household manager and drew largely from other sources
including the magazine, but that did not stop her from serving up her
reassuring guidance to the rapidly-growing population of her fellow
middle-class housewives. Her most lasting contribution to cookery might be
standardizing the modern recipe format of listing the ingredients first,
followed by the instructions, even if some of her chapter titles seem odd
to a 21st century reader (“General Observations on Quadrupeds”).
In nearly 1200 pages, *Beeton’s* covers everything a modern 19th century
housewife needed to know, from how to manage servants, make antidotes for
common poisons, to… well, let’s just let the subtitle tell you:
Everything you need to know
Mrs. Beeton offers nearly three dozen recipes for pie, both savory (like
eel pie and, um, parrot pie) and sweet, such as the recipe for apple tart
below. You’ll see from her illustrations that Beeton did not necessarily
agree with the accepted bottom-crust-only definition of a tart, and for
that we must commend her. (Also, don’t apricot fritters sound delicious?)
Illustrations of Puddings & Pastries from* Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household
Management. The “fruit pudding” looks a bit vague…*
Enough history! Let’s get cooking.
The original recipe, forever enshrined on my refrigerator
Stansberry Pie
*Developed & Transcribed by C.J. Bunce*
“*a tart containing apple, strawberry, and rhubarb*”
This recipe is for a full pie (double crust) but it can be adapted to
single tarts if desired. Kids (with parents’ help) and kids of all ages,
give it a try and let us know what you think!
Ingredients
1 or 2 pie crusts (suggest traditional oil recipe below)
1 ¼ cup sugar
5 TBS flour
¼ tsp salt
Dash of orange rind*
½ tsp cinnamon**
¼ tsp nutmeg***
1 cup chopped rhubarb
1 cup sliced mixed apples (like Granny Smith or Jonathan mixed with Red
Delicious)
2 cups sliced strawberries
1 capful of lemon juice
1 TBS butter/oleomargarine
One discontented and uncooperative hob (oven)
1. Mix dry ingredients, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
2. Mix in fruit, rhubarb, apples, and strawberries.
3. Pour mix into bottom crust. Use second crust to make lattice top.
Dot on crisscrosses with butter cut into 1/3-inch cubes.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes with aluminum foil loose cover.
5. Remove foil and decrease to 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
* (more or less)
** (use a lot more)
*** (not more than that)
Look at all that fruit!
*Traditional Oil Crust*
2 ½ cups flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup olive oil
6 TBS ice cold water
Add oil to dry flour and salt, stir with fork, make two balls of dough,
refrigerate for 15 minutes. Roll or press out on oil-sprayed pie dish.
Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
***
Top your finished pie with cream, whipped cream, ice cream, or
what-have-you (or nothing), and enjoy *while reading a great book*!
Mrs. Beeton’s Apple Tart
(with original spelling, punctuation, and formatting!)
*APPLE TART OR PIE*
1233. Ingredients.—-Puff-paste No. 1205 or 120G, apples; to every 1 1b.
of unpared apples allow 2 oz. of moist sugar, 1 teaspoonful of
finely-minced lemon-peel, 1 tablespoonful of lemon-juice.
Mode,—Make 1 lb. of puff-paste by either of the above-named recipes, place
a border of it round the edge of a pie-dish,’and fill it with apples pared,
cored, and cut into slices; sweeten with moist sugar, add the lemon-peel
and juice, and 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of water ; cover with crust, cut it
evenly round close to the edge of the pie-dish, and bake in a hot oven from
1/2 to ¾ hour, or rather longer, should the pie be very large.
When it is three-parts done, take it out of the oven, put the white of an
egg on a plate, and, with the blade of a knife, whisk it to a froth ; brush
the pie over with this, then sprinkle upon it some sifted sugar, and then a
few drops of water. Put the pie back into the oven, and finish baking, and
be particularly careful that it does not catch or burn, which it is very
liable to do after the crust is iced. If made with a plain crust, the icing
may be omitted.
*Time.*—1/2 hour before the crust is iced; 10 to 15 minutes afterwards.
*Average cost 9d* (ninepence)
*Sufficient*.—Allow 2 lbs. of apples for a tart for 6 persons.
*Seasonable* from August to March ; but the apples become flavourless after
February.
*Note*.—Many things are suggested for the flavouring of apple pie ; some
say 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of beer, others the same quantity of sherry,
which very much improve the taste ; whilst the old-fashioned addition of a
few cloves is, by many persons, preferred to anything else, as also a few
slices of quince.
(Mrs. Beeton kindly provided the following additional information on
quinces and their potential hazards.)
Let me know if you try either of these recipes!
Enjoy!
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