This week, we are making a pie with cinnamon red hot candies and alphabet noodles.
This is Alphabet Pie!
AuthorRetroRuth
From 250 Superb Pies and Pastries, Culinary Arts Institute, 1941
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Combine the first four ingredients and ¼ teaspoon of the salt and cook about 40 minutes or until noodles are tender. Drain and reserve cooking syrup for filling.
Sift sugar, cornstarch and remaining ¼ teaspoon of salt together; add eggs, reserved cooking syrup, and cream; cook slowly until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add butter, pineapple juice, pears and all but 2 tablespoons of the noodles.
Cool filling, then pour into pastry shell. Cover with whipped cream and decorate with reserved noodles.
Ingredients
Directions
Combine the first four ingredients and ¼ teaspoon of the salt and cook about 40 minutes or until noodles are tender. Drain and reserve cooking syrup for filling.
Sift sugar, cornstarch and remaining ¼ teaspoon of salt together; add eggs, reserved cooking syrup, and cream; cook slowly until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add butter, pineapple juice, pears and all but 2 tablespoons of the noodles.
Cool filling, then pour into pastry shell. Cover with whipped cream and decorate with reserved noodles.
Notes
This pie was originally brought to my attention by a reader, and really caused me to take a closer at the book it comes from, 250 Superb Pies and Pastries, published by Culinary Arts Institute in 1941. I had this book in my collection for quite a while before I really read the thing from cover to cover.
Or, in my case, missing cover.
After taking a really good, long look at this book, I’ve discovered that this might actually be my favorite pie cookbook. Ever. With pies like Fruit Salad, Ground Cherry, Frosted Orange, Transparent Custard, Barbara Frietchie, Sharkey Custard and Lemon Potato, I’m going to be very busy in the future testing out pies.
But I chose Alphabet Pie as my first victim, mostly because it was a pudding pie, and I love pudding pies. As a child of the 80’s, there was a period of about four years early in my culinary adventures where my specialty dessert was a intricate multi-layered pudding pie with a graham cracker crust and topped with Cool Whip.
True story.
And I was thrilled with this shade of pink! I mean…as thrilled as you can be with cinnamon red hot pudding.
Everybody in the pool!
Meet Noodles, the pie.
In retrospect, scattering the remaining noodles around on top wasn’t the best choice for garnish. It kind of looked like rice over the pie. Or bugs.
Anyway, onto the testing.
“What do you think Alex?”
“Yum! Very pie-y!”
“Well, you can’t argue with that.”
“Well, that’s not a good face.”
“This tastes like cinnamon.”
“That’s good.”
“Cinnamon breath mints.”
“Ouch.”
The Verdict: Breath Mints
From The Tasting Notes –
This pie was actually not that bad, and was kind of fun. I mean, for being completely insane. It pretty much tasted like cinnamon red hot pudding, which means it had a very…unique flavor. Like breath mints. But once you get over the shock of that, it actually kind of works and the pie ended up being not bad. The noodles tasted like…noodles in a pie. And the pears tasted like canned pears in cinnamon pudding, but overall it wasn’t a disgusting experience. It tasted very much like candy. The homemade pudding was good but a bit cornstarch-y. But even when you flavored it strangely and throw in a bunch of crazy mix-ins it still tasted good, pretty much proving that you really can’t ruin pudding pie. Plus, it actually ended up being pretty. The pink pudding was fun, and Alex enjoyed it a lot. That being said, I can’t think of any occasion where this would be an appropriate dessert except for a child’s birthday party. And that child had better really like red hots.
I like the idea of cooking some noodles with some red hots in order to use them to write words on top of the pie (like conversation hearts for Valentines day) but I don’t think I would want that many noodles, or that many red hots, in the pie itself.
That is one of the most bizarre recipes I’ve ever heard of.
But the slice looked sooooo pretty.
I expect a submission from this book for the next pieathalon!!!
Fantastic post! I love everything mid-century. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙂
Why? I can understand cinnamon pie–I have an old cinnamon pie recipe that was popular when fruit was unavailable–but why the alphabet noodles? Just for fun? Or was there a huge craze for alphabet noodles at the time? Or maybe the author was just nuts?
COOK THE NOODLES FOR 40 MINUTES. Can I introduce you to my friend, Al Dente?
I know, it was a different time. Lots of old recipes think pasta needs to be cooked to death. So weird!
This recipe sounds so intriguing! Please make more pies from that book. I love old recipes, but pies are my favorite. The weirder, the better!
Honestly, in this context, I think overcooking the noodles makes sense. They seem more like garnish here, and it might be texturally weird to chomp down on something slightly chewy in the middle of the pie like that. Crunchy would be fine, soft yes, but I know I get a bit weirded out when I’m eating something soft and there’s something only slightly less soft inside it suddenly… makes me think I’ve found an undercooked lump of something, brrr.
Kinda like the idea of using the pasta for decorative flair, but the cinnamon pudding part is making me recoil. Pear juice and mint would be lovely, though.
In other news: I’ve just finished all the archives!! *open-mouthed muppet smile* Also, I’ve just found some of my mom’s old (early 70’s) Weight Watchers monthly newsletters, all of which have recipes! I’m looking at one right now that is hamburger chili with, get this, a can of BEAN SPROUTS! Yikes.
I’m so glad you made this because I truly could not imagine what the pie would be like when I read the recipe and I didn’t want to fall on this particular grenade! There are certainly some strange recipes in the booklet, but the delicious sounding ones far out number them.
I’m with Tom’s face on this one. The idea of a cinnamon candy flavour pie makes me shudder.