Icebox pie

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Icebox pies are no-bake pies including ice cream pies, chiffon pies, and classic cream pies like key lime pie, lemon ice box pie, chocolate pudding pie, grasshopper pie and banana cream pie. The crust can be a crumb crust or blind baked pastry. [1] They are associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. [2]

Contents

Ingredients

Common ingredients used in the filling include whipped cream, condensed milk, or pudding. The cookie based crusts are often made with crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafers, though other types of cookies like shortbread and gingersnaps can be used. [3] Variations can be made with the addition of ingredients like peanut butter, malted milk, dulce de leche and sliced bananas. Icebox pies are very often topped with whipped cream. [1]

Some ice box pie fillings are made with gelatin; a 1937 recipe for strawberry icebox pie starts by whisking fruit flavored gelatin to an egg white consistency and combining with fresh fruit. Poured over a vanilla wafer crust to set, the pie is topped with fresh whipped cream. The same basic recipe can be modified using other fruits like peaches or raspberries. Custard pies are made similarly, replacing the gelatin with a simple homemade custard filling, topped with fresh or canned fruits (especially cherries). [4]

History

Icebox pies were originally kept cool in an icebox, used to store perishables when most farming households in the United States had neither electricity nor refrigeration. Because they required no baking they were popular during the summer when it was too hot to bake. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.

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Mango float or crema de mangga is a Filipino icebox cake dessert made with layers of ladyfingers (broas) or graham crackers, whipped cream, condensed milk, and ripe carabao mangoes. It is chilled for a few hours before serving, though it can also be frozen to give it an ice cream-like consistency. It is a modern variant of the traditional Filipino crema de fruta cake. It is also known by various other names like mango refrigerator cake, mango graham float, mango royale, and mango icebox cake, among others. Crema de mangga is another version that additionally uses custard and gulaman (agar) or gelatin, as in the original crema de fruta.

Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.

References

  1. 1 2 "What Are Icebox Pies and Why Are Southerners So Crazy About Them?". Southern Living.
  2. 1 2 "Ice box pie history". What's Cooking America. 19 May 2015.
  3. "Old-fashioned icebox pies are easy and delicious". The San Diego Union-Tribune. 4 June 2019. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  4. The Star Press, Muncie, Indiana, 08 May 1937