Recipe Redux: 1975: Dick Taeuber’s Cordial Pie (Published 2006) (2024)

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Food | In the Magazine

By Amanda Hesser

Oct. 29, 2006

In January 1970, The Times published a recipe for brandy Alexander pie. It was an unassuming confection: a graham-cracker crust filled with a wobbly, creamy mousse and enough alcohol to raise the hair on your neck and then make your neck wobbly too. Later that year, Craig Claiborne, then the food editor, declared it one of the paper’s three most-requested dessert recipes (the other two were cheesecake and pots-de-creme) and ran it again. By rights, this should have been the recipe’s swan song.

But thanks to Dick Taeuber, a Maryland statistician, the pie lived on. Taeuber discovered that you could use a simple formula to make the pie in the flavor of almost any co*cktail you wanted (3 eggs to 1 cup cream to 1/2 cup liquor). Among the ones he came up with were the Fifth Avenue (apricot brandy and brown creme de cacao), the Shady Lady (coffee-flavored brandy and triple sec) and Taeuber’s favorite, the Pink Squirrel (made with creme de almond and white creme de cacao). Each pie had a corresponding crust made with graham crackers, gingersnaps or chocolate cookies. Taeuber sent Claiborne a letter including 10 variations on the pie. By the time Claiborne responded and said he wanted to run his recipes, Taeuber was up to 20. In 1975, Claiborne renamed it Dick Taeuber’s cordial pie and published it once more, this time with all 20 variations in a chart. (A complete list, including his original cordial-pie recipe, is at nytimes.com/magazine.)

Calling it a cordial pie doesn’t quite capture its punch or proof. Booze pie would be more fitting. It’s not the kind of thing you want to serve for a children’s birthday party.

”I kept going, and in 1978, I think, it was up to 50 variations,” said Taeuber, now 73 and retired. ”I mailed Craig a copy just for information. He put a note in his food column that I had copies available if anybody wanted to send me a quarter and a self-addressed envelope. The quarter was so I could pay for the postage. Everyone sent a quarter and a stamp.” The note came out on a Monday. By Friday, Taeuber had 1,200 requests.

And then the pie went into a 28-year hibernation.

Recently, Meg Ray and Caitlin Williams, the owners of Miette Cakes, a stylish bakery in San Francisco that serves cakes with names like the tomboy, the lemon debutante and the old-fashioned (with a cherry on top), re-imagined the booze pie as ice-cream sandwiches, literally a children’s dessert for adults. They replaced the graham-cracker crust with homemade graham crackers, turned the mousse into ice cream and elevated it with a modern, abstemious dose of Cognac. On the surface, it’s a tasty trifle, but there is subtlety too, with a little cinnamon here, some salt there.

Not that there’s really any need to modernize the booze pie. You can bring the original idea back intact, just like this season’s skinny pants, which are straight from the 1950’s. Just don’t serve it after a casserole.

1975: Dick Taeuber’s Brandy Alexander Pie
This recipe appeared in The Times in an article by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey.

1 ½ ups graham-cracker crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
¼ cup Cognac
¼ cup creme de cacao
1 cup heavy cream
Food coloring (optional)
Chocolate curls, for garnish.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the crumbs with butter. Form in a 9-inch pan and bake for 10 minutes. Cool.

2. Pour ½ cup cold water in a saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over it. Add 1/3 cup sugar, salt and egg yolks. Stir to blend. Place over low heat and stir until the gelatin dissolves and the mixture thickens. Do not boil. Remove from heat.

3. Stir the Cognac and creme de cacao into the mixture. Then chill until the mixture starts to mound slightly when nudged with a spoon.

4. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the remaining 1/3 cup sugar and beat until peaks are firm. Fold the meringue into the thickened mixture.

5. Whip the cream, then fold into the mixture. Add food coloring if desired. Turn the mixture into the crust. Add garnish, if desired. Chill several hours or overnight. Serves 6.

2006: Cognac-Ice-Cream Sandwiches
By Caitlin Williams and Meg Ray, owners of Miette Cakes in San Francisco.

For the graham crackers:
2 cups flour
½ cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup honey

For the Cognac ice cream:
1 cup milk
2 cups cream
2/3 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
2 tablespoons Cognac
2 tablespoons chocolate liqueur.

1. Make the graham crackers: sift together the flours, salt and cinnamon. Set aside. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the honey and mix until blended. Add the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing until combined before adding the second batch. Mold the dough into 2 balls, wrap in plastic, flatten and chill for at least an hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out half the dough on a piece of parchment paper to a large square, 1/8-inch thick. Cut the sheet of dough into 3- by 3-inch squares, leaving them as is on the parchment; trim any excess dough from the edges. Transfer this sheet of dough to a baking sheet, using the parchment paper to lift it. Repeat with the remaining dough. Chill for 30 minutes. Bake until golden, 14 to 16 minutes. Let cool, then break into precut squares.

Image

3. Make the ice cream: in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk, cream and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Do not boil. Gently whisk the yolks in a bowl. Temper them by pouring ½ cup of the hot liquid into them, then whisk this into the hot liquid in the pan. Over medium heat, cook the custard, stirring continuously in a figure-eight pattern until it coats the back of a spoon. Strain into a heatproof bowl. Stir in the alcohol, then chill in the refrigerator. Churn in an ice-cream maker until thick. Freeze until firm.

Recipe Redux: 1975: Dick Taeuber’s Cordial Pie (Published 2006) (2024)

References