Jam and Cream Pie - the 1947 Way

I was reading a digital newspaper from 1947 the other day - the way you do, and I came upon this recipe.  In my spare time, I do text corrections of newspaper articles for Trove, the online resource managed by the National Library of Australia.  I often come across amazing old recipes, which give you (and me) a great insight into the social history of our country.

I was surprised to see them suggest using pecans in this recipe, as I thought these nuts had only been brought to Australia fairly recently.  I Googled it, and discovered that we (I mean Aussies) have only grown them commercially since the 1960's.  I certainly don't remember mum using them in her cooking!  I guess they would have been imported and quite expensive back in the day. 

golden and jammy pie

This recipe is from The (Hobart) Mercury 27 May 1947.

Slightly adapted by Sherry's Pickings:


ingredients:



2 sheets frozen puff pastry 

2 tbs semolina or cornflour

1½ cups (490g.) of cherry or raspberry jam - I used black cherry

250g. frozen cherries or raspberries depending on your jam choice

1½ cups (150g.) ground almonds or pecans - I used 100g. pecans and 50g. almonds

1/4 cup (60 mLs) cream 

1/4 tsp almond extract

3 tbs sour cream

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbs of white or caster sugar



Method:


Turn on your oven to 200C/400F

Lightly butter a pie plate

Line it with one of the thawed pastry sheets; trim the edges to make a neat circle

Sprinkle 1 tbs of the semolina or cornflour over the pastry

Spread your jam of choice over the base evenly

Tip the fruit over the jam; now sprinkle the other tbs of semolina over the fruit

Mix the nut meal with the cream, then stir in the almond extract

Stir the sour cream, egg yolk and cinnamon together

Now combine the 2 cream mixes

And spread happily over the jam and fruit

Whack on your top layer of pastry; neaten the edges and slit the top a few times

Sprinkle with the white sugar 

And bake for about 25 mins. till lightly golden brown on top


Notes:

As this recipe was published in pre-metric times, I've adapted the measurements.  I found the conversion for a cup of jam was anything from 325g. to 340g.  I used 335g. per cup as my basic measurement for the jam, and that was plenty. 

The recipe says to use puff pastry, so I don't know if they meant homemade but probably not.  I'm sure even housewives in those pre-Liberation days didn't go around making their own.

I didn't bother to unthaw the fruit completely, but I did leave it out for a little while before using so it was somewhat less than frozen

gather your ingredients

I blitzed the pecans myself

Not sure how easy it is to buy pecan meal, so I blitzed my own as I had whole pecans in the pantry.

whack on the jam and the fruit to your pastry base 

the 2 cream mixes

the 2 cream mixes mixed:=) and ready to go on the fruit 

spoon on the nutty mixture

on goes the top layer and the sugar

golden and delicious

yep the filling is kind of runny     

I have to admit the filling gets runny once it's cooked.  But who cares?  It tastes delicious; just let it cool down and spoon up all the jammy wonder.  Mr P. and his staff said it was delicious, runny or not. 

the original recipe 

         my jammy doodle