Category: Desserts

Blancmange

My mother made most of our desserts.  In the winter she made lots of pies and cakes, but often we had just berries, peaches or pears she had canned the previous summer.  When we were lucky she would bake a shortcake and we would have blueberry or raspberry shortcake.  And if we were really lucky, she would make vanilla pudding. Once you try it, you will understand why I still love warm blancmange with strawberries or raspberries, especially when it is cold outside.

She didn’t call her pudding blancmange.  To her it was vanilla pudding, but it was what we call blancmange today:  A slightly sweet dessert custard thickened with cornstarch. If you research the history of blancmange you will learn that it used to be made with almond milk and in the middle ages was a bland stew that included chopped fish or poultry and various seasonings.

No matter.  I did not know that until long after I had grown up and left home, but I know that Mom’s vanilla pudding deserves to be called blancmange.  The name gives it a certain elegance.  This pudding is simple to make and is delicious served warm topped with fresh or frozen fruit.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup sugar
6 T cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
4 cups milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

PROCEDURE:

Put about an inch of water in the bottom of the double boiler.  Mix the sugar, salt and cornstarch together in the the top of the boiler.  Add the milk slowly and stir well to dissolve the dry ingredients.  Heat the mixture over boiling water in the double boiler and stir it constantly until it begins to thicken.  You can tell when it has thickened enough when it leaves a creamy gravy-like coating on the spoon.  Cover the mixture and allow it to cook another ten minutes.

Beat two eggs until they are lemon yellow.  Stir about a cup of the hot milk mixture one tablespoon at a time into the beaten eggs.  To ensure a silky custard, dribble the hot mixture into the eggs slowly while stirring vigorously with a whisk or fork.  Then beat this egg and milk combination into the milk mixture.  Cook for two minutes while stirring constantly.

Remove the custard from the heat, let it cool for about a minute and stir in one teaspoon of vanilla.

You can leave the pudding in the double boiler covered with a piece of waxed paper for an hour or so.  Serve it warm with one or two tablespoons of fresh or frozen fruit over each serving.  Or if you wish, spoon the warm pudding into dessert cups, chill and serve them with a fruit topping.

Blueberry Pie

Berry picking was a regular summer weekend activity for my family when I was growing up.  Most berry picking expeditions were fun, but there were times when we kids dreaded those hot afternoons on logging roads and in the woods, when the only breezes were fanned by deer flies and mosquitoes and the berries were few.  When we found a good patch, however, it was fun to fill our pails while we looked forward to all the good things our mother would make.  

My sister Barbara published a small book for our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary with photos and notes by my siblings and me.  One that I contributed was about berry picking.  

A Catalog of Berries

What did we gather

From roadsides and fence rows?

What fruits did we pick

On hot summer days?

First wild strawberries,

Then Juneberries and blueberries,

Followed by raspberries, blackberries

And pin cherries and sometimes some

Chokecherries and wild plums too.

Made into shortcakes,

Baked into pies,

Turned into jams

And jellies and sauces

To cool us on hot days

And warm us on cold days

With memories of summer

In the middle of winter.

But enough of this.  The blueberries are plump and starting to ripen.  In two weeks, the Lord willing, you can be picking your own blueberries.  Just drive the backwoods through the county and national forests north of highway 70 until you find some open pine woods.  

Stop the car and walk into the woods.  You may not find any the first two or three stops, but if you keep looking, suddenly you will be walking through a carpet of blueberries.  Drop to your knees and fill your pail, then head home to make blueberry pie. 

Here is my recipe.  It is based on one from an old cookbook of my mother’s that I used for my first blueberry pie in 1954.  It is best made with wild blueberries, but tame blueberries are okay.   The pie is easy to make and delicious, especially when served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

INGREDIENTS:

Pie dough for a double crust

4 cups fresh wild blueberries

3/4 cup sugar plus extra to decorate the top crust

4 T all purpose flour

Dash of salt

2 T lemon juice

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. butter

PROCEDURE:

Wash the blueberries and remove any stems, leaves or bad berries.   Drain the berries and mix them with the other ingredients in a large bowl.  Set the bowl aside for at least fifteen minutes while you are making the pie crust.

Preheat the oven to 450º.

Line a nine-inch pie plate with the crust.  Stir the blueberries and fill the crust.  Dot with four or five pea-sized pieces of butter.  Cover with a top crust and seal the edges.  Make a few slits in the crust to allow steam to escape and sprinkle a little sugar on top.  Put it into the hot oven and bake for ten minutes.   Reduce the heat to 350º and bake thirty-five or forty minutes until the crust is golden brown.  Allow the pie to cool thoroughly before serving.

NOTE:  This pie always seems to run over in the oven.  Put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven to catch the overflow.  This is actually a pretty good idea for any pie.  If you prefer, make a lattice for the top crust.