cherry bounce Archives - OLD LINE PLATE

I made this pie twice this year. Once with very ripe fruit and once with the ripe
but firm and white flesh seen above. I strongly recommend the latter.

If you are lucky enough to find some farmed paw-paws then this pie will be a crowd-pleaser. Otherwise there is an admittedly disappointing (bitter) aspect to this recipe. This pie is delicious but you may pay the price when you get that bite with the lingering bitterness. (Note: some people aren’t as sensitive to this bitter taste. For me it is quite strong!)

At the 2015 Ohio Paw Paw festival I inquired to the growers association
representative as to why the paw paw pie I’d first made a few years ago had
these bitter spots. I had a few theories – the pulp close to the skin, the
heat from the custard, the stage of ripeness. She informed me, as had Andrew Moore in his OLP interview, that this is just the gamble we take with wild fruits.

This recipe is adapted from my favorite banana cream pie formula – the custard is lightly flavored with alcohol such as vanilla extract or bourbon, the fruit is laid under the custard and its strong flavor permeates the custard above.

I used Cherry Bounce for flavoring and the result was subtle but tasty.

This recipe marks the end of paw paw season on Old Line Plate. I will be tossing the seeds into the woods at Wyman Park so that one year some day maybe I won’t have to leave the city when I want to make this pie.

Recipe:

Vanilla Wafer Crust

1.75 cups crushed vanilla wafers

scant ½ cup of sugar

½ cup melted butter

Combine all ingredients and press into bottom and sides of a large pie dish. Bake at 375° for 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Pie filling:

pulp from 1 or two large just ripe paw paw fruits
1/3 cup cornstarch
2/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
3 cups milk, scalded
3 eggs, separated
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tsp flavoring eg vanilla, rum, brandy
2 tb sugar
baked pastry shell
optional: 1 packet gelatin

Combine cornstarch, 2/3 cup of sugar and salt in a double boiler or suitable pot, mix well. If you want to serve this as a stiff chilled pie later, you can add some gelatin at this point.Otherwise, the pie has a pudding-like texture. Gradually add milk over medium heat, stirring or gently whisking constantly, just until thickened.

(When I want to add additional flavoring I put it in while the custard is cooking and add a small remaining amount later)

Beat egg yolks in a bowl, whisk in about ¼ of hot custard mixture and then add back to custard in double boiler. Cook until thickened and bubbly.

Remove from heat, stir in butter and flavoring.

Spread paw paw pulp over pie crust and cover with custard.

Beat egg whites (at room temperature) until soft peaks form, gradually add sugar until meringue is stiffened – spread over custard, sealing to edges of pan. Bake at 350° for 5 minutes or until meringue is lightly browned. Serve pie warm or chilled.

Old Maryland cookbooks such as “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” tend to have a good amount of space dedicated to alcoholic beverages, whether their purpose is social, medicinal, or for further use in the kitchen.

Edwin Tunis Illustration, “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”

For typical servants and housewives, brewing and alcoholic preserving was as essential a part of duties as canning and baking. For the more well-to-do and decadent, cocktails factor in as well (this blog may be the death of me come eggnog season.)

My friends’ backyard tree was brimming with rapidly ripening sour cherries and so we grabbed the nearest “bounce” recipe and got picking.

I had several options: Mrs. B.C. Howard alone has four recipes in “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.” Plus one for blackberry bounce (I wish I had that many blackberries.)

The Hammond-Harwood House cookbook “Maryland’s Way” has a recipe contributed by Sarah Perry Rodgers who says that “Miss Ridgley” of Baltimore used whiskey and Jamaica rum and that the Ridgley’s “were known for their bounce.”

Even the temperate Elizabeth Ellicott Lea has a recipe for “Cherry Cordial,” for medicinal use such as “female complaints.”

“The addition of ethyl alcohol rather than rum or rye, and the very large quantity of sugar all suggest this medical application. The social drink, made with rum in Maryland and rye in Pennsylvania, was infinitely easier to make and infinitely easier to drink than Lea’s concoction.” – William Woys Weaver, A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook: The Domestic Cookery of Elizabeth Ellicott Lea

I went with a recipe contributed by “Mrs. Wm. Courtland Hart” of Somerset County to “Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland”

Beechwood in 1967, Maryland State Archives

It seems that Mrs. William Courtland Hart was Eliza Waters, of the well known Waters family, and an heir to the Beechwood estate in Somerset County, which she passed on to WIlliam Courtland Hart. The property eventually became the local American Legion.

Somerset County in Vintage Postcards By John E. Jacob, Jason Rhodes

Time and trends will tell us which of the many cordials, cocktails and wines will soon resurface on menus about town, but Cherry Bounce remains relatively known primarily due to its association with George Washington. Washington is known to have packed Cherry Bounce on a trip west in 1784.

“As the first first lady, Mrs. Washington served Cherry Bounce in the president’s house. Abigail Adams would write to her sister about “Mrs. W’s publick day” party on New Year’s Day, 1790: The two delicacies of the season were “a kind of cake in fashion upon this day call’d New Year’s Cooky. This & Cherry Bounce,” which were the customary treats of the holiday.” – The Wall Street Journal

Hot Martha Washington. who cares?

Martha Washington’s recipe involved using the cherry pits. Some recipes retain the cherry “meat” and then when you remove it later you can use them for other purposes. That may have been a nice frugal idea but we took the easiest path with Mrs. Hart’s recipe using the juice, heavily spiced with the usual suspects of the time, swapping nutmeg for mace. Other recipes bottle the mixture at later points but we bottled it immediately.

I forgot to photograph the brandy bottle but it was the finest middle-of-the-line.

We will crack open these bottles later this summer and figure out what the heck it can be used for. I’m guessing it will involve ice cream..

Tag: cherry bounce

PawPaw Cream Pie

Cherry Bounce

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