Hello from TINA KASHIAN! I have a special holiday treat for our readers today! My friend and guest is Ellen Byron, and she is sharing a delectable dessert of Pumpkin Chiffon Pie plus giving away a copy of Bayou Book Thief, Vintage Cookbook Mystery #1. Let’s welcome Ellen!
One of the pleasures
of writing my Vintage Cookbook Mystery series is that I get to mine my own
collection of vintage cookbooks for recipes to include with each book. I love finding
dishes or treats that have fallen out of favor, so this recipe for Pumpkin
Chiffon Pie, which will be included in French Quarter Fright Night,
Vintage Cookbook Mystery #3, caught my eye.
The original recipe, which I’ve adapted and updated, is from Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home: Famous Recipes, A Duncan Hines Book (1948 ed.) Unlike Betty Crocker, a fictional character created in 1921 for a Saturday Evening Post contest, Duncan Hines was a real person: a traveling salesman who compiled a list of restaurants he’d eat at during his travels that he shared with friends. This turned into a book and a food column. Eventually, he licensed his name for baked goods, hence the Duncan Hines mixes we know today.
Chiffon pies were
popular in the 1950s and 1960s, but you don’t see them around anymore. After
making this recipe, which creates a delectably light and fluffy pie, I think
chiffons are due for a comeback.
Pumpkin Chiffon Pie
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 and ¼ cup pumpkin
2 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ginger
¼ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. salt
1 T. gelatin
¼ cup cold water
2 T. sugar
10” baked pie shell (I used a graham
cracker crust because I think it complements the pumpkin)
Directions:
Place
brown sugar, egg yolks, pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt in a
double boiler. Mix ingredients and cook until the mixture begins to thicken,
then turn off heat.
Soak the gelatin in the cold water for five minutes. Add it to the hot mixture, stir until it’s thoroughly dissolved, and cool. Beat the egg white until they form stiff peaks, then beat the sugar into the egg whites.
Fold the egg whites into the cooled mixture.
Pour into the baked pie shell and chill. Serve garnished with whipped cream. Servings: 6-8.
ABOUT: Ellen’s
Cajun Country Mysteries have won multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary
Novel and Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief, her
first Vintage Cookbook Mystery, won the
Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Award
and was nominated for Agatha and Anthony awards. She also writes the Catering
Hall Mysteries (under the name Maria DiRico) and will soon debut a new series,
the Golden Motel Mysteries.
Ellen is an
award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings,
Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two
hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive
credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart.
Giveaway to one lucky reader! (U.S. Only for print). Please leave an email address to enter to win. What is your favorite pie?
WINED AND DIED IN NEW ORLEANS, Vintage Cookbook Mystery #2:
Repairs on the property unearth crates of valuable French
wine over a century and a half old. Ricki, who’s been struggling with upping
her social media profile to attract more customers to Miss Vee’s, is thrilled
when her post about the discovery of this long-buried liquid treasure goes
viral. She’s less thrilled when the post brings distant Charbonnet family
members out of the woodwork, all clamoring for a cut of the proceeds when the
wine is auctioned off, including Jean-Pierre Charbonnet, a long-lost French
relative.
When a dead body turns up in Bon Vee’s cheery fall outdoor decorations the NOPD zeroes in on Eugenia Charbonnet Felice, as the prime suspect, figuring that as board president and the head of the Charbonnet family, she has the most to gain. Ricki is determined to uncover the real culprit, but she can’t help noticing that Eugenia is acting strangely. Ricki wonders what kind of secret her mentor has bottled up, and fears what might happen if she uncorks it.
In the second Vintage Cookbook Mystery, Ricki has to help solve a murder, untangle family secrets, and grow her business, all while living under the threat of a hurricane that could wipe out everything from her home to Bon Vee.
