"Pie"

3/4 cup sifted cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup boiling water
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1 recipe cream filling
2 cups heavy cream (whipped)
2 cups freshly grated coconut

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside. Beat egg yolks until very thick and lemon-colored. Gradually beat in sugar. At low speed, blend in boiling water and flavorings. Quickly fold in flour and pour into a greased and floured 8- or 9-inch round cake pan (cover bottom with waxed paper).

Bake in pre-heated 350 degree oven 20-25 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Do not overbake. Let cool in pan 8-10 minutes, then remove. Split in half lengthwise with serrated knife, making 2 layers. Cover bottom of layer with cooked cream filling (see below) and then top with 1/2 of the whipped cream. Add top layer and ice with remaining whipped cream. Sprinkle heavily with fresh coconut. (Joyce McClement's actually used a boiled icing.)


Cream Filling

1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
1 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils. Boil one minute more. Remove from heat, stir in butter and vanilla. Cool.

• This is really a cake, not a pie. It's a Western Pennsylvania thing that just has to be accepted and not explained. (Like Boston cream pie I guess.)

• My mother obtained the recipe somewhere, possibly from the shop when it was closing, more probably from the newspaper.

• Sometimes I use boiled icing and sometimes whipped cream. Both are good. It depends on whether you are eating at home, or taking the cake with you somewhere.

• Refrigerate any left over cake (because of the cream filling). In the summer, Joyce McClement's used to demand that you purchase dry ice and pack the cream pie in it if you were taking the pie more than ten miles from the shop.