Mabel Miller is one twisted individual.I received a letter from my Grandmom a few months ago. She is the internet super sensation seen here. She also loves to cook. And think about cooking. She reads cookbooks like novels in bed before she goes to sleep and is so well versed in the art that she can imagine how it would taste just from the recipe and is satisfied by that alone. What a talent! She should start her own diet trend - Thought Calories don't pack on a single pound.
Anyway, she sent me a photocopy from a cookbook that she found at her boyfriend's house, which included a recipe for "Jenny Syms Pie". She joked that they must have mistyped and spelled the name wrong, and how in all her years of cooking, she had never had a recipe named after her. The recipe was by Mabel Miller, and Grandmom pondered if she could be related, we have Miller's in our family.
I was excited to try it. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the cook of the family, and that Larry's main concern when he leaves for a business trip is how I will feed myself, seeing as how in previous attempts I have actually resorted to eating a can of mandarin oranges and a can of corn as my dinner. I am not too bad of a baker though, and actually enjoy it from time to time, especially when its my namesake dish.
From the start though, things looked questionable. Let's review the ingredients:
2 eggs
1 C. sugar
1 C. water
1 C. molasses
1/2 C. vinegar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. allspice
1/4 t. cloves
1 t. baking soda
Hmmm, a few of these make sense; eggs, sugar, spices - I'm smelling what your stepping in, Mabel. But then there are the others; water (specifically an entire cup), baking soda, and, the most heinous, vinegar. And not just a tablespoon either, half of a cup!
Then we have the directions:
Mix together and bake in an unbaked pie shell at 350 degrees.
Short and to the point. No length of time for how long to cook the pie, but hey!, who needs that? I'll just keep an eye on it. And since there is no mention of it, I will just add the ingredients in whatever order.
Dinner was almost ready and the oven was already at 350, so it made sense to make the pie last night. I wanted to get as much ready as I could, so that I could just dump the mixture into the shell and straight into the oven as soon as dinner was finished cooking. I added all of the ingredients except the eggs and vinegar (my thought process - eggs should stay cold, and vinegar will make the house stink - this should be a bad sign whenever making dessert). At the last minute, I added the eggs and vinegar.
Did you ever make a volcano in grade school? The two main ingredients in lava are baking soda and vinegar. The pie mixture started to foam and bubble. It was also very watery. I poured it into the frozen pie shell. Well, 1/3 of it anyway. The rest I saved in a baking dish thinking, if its tasty, we can make a crustless pie with the rest. Ever the optimist!
I put it in the oven and baked it for about 30 minutes, checking it every few minutes. It started to burn, so I pulled it out. The liquid had soaked through the pie shell, and the shell was now floating on the top, with this syrupy liquid underneath. YUMMY!
Larry and I tasted a bit of the more cooked part. The flavor was not horrible, Larry described it as mince meat pie without the fruit.
I am pretty sure that my Grandmom's keen ability to taste what she reads should have been lead to this result, but alas, she sent me the recipe and I made a sad, sad nasty-water pie.
