Thanks for Dinner: Desserts
Time for something a little sweet

Menus: By Decade

Recipes: By Type

Boiled Puddings, Pies, and more

When people think of Thanksgiving, the most common dessert that comes to mind is pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pies feature in many of the menus given. During certain decades, pumpkin pie is the only dessert listed. It's not the only one ever served though. Up until the 1940s, boiled or baked puddings with or without sauce featured heavily in Thanksgiving menus. While rarely made in the United States today, this was a traditional holdover from England, where boiled pudding is still associated with Christmas meals. Mince pie was also popular during the late 1880s. Cakes of various kinds also make an appearance, and one menu even features Election cake. Election cake was a traditional cake made and served on the second Tuesday, or election day in the United States.

Dessert Recipes

1874: Indian Pudding
  • 4 cups scalding hot milk
  • 1 cup corn meal
  • 1/2 cup molasses
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 egg
  • Enough cold water to wet the corn meal
In a large, plastic bowl wet the corn meal with just enough cold water to moisten. Add in molasses, salt, cinnamon, and mix. Add the scalding milk onto it. Let cool, add in the egg, and mix. Put the mixture into a deep baking dish. Bake in an oven at 350° until done, up to an hour and a half.
- Croly, Jane Cunninghame. Jennie June's American Cookery Book: Containing Upwards of Twelve Hundred Choice And Carefully Tested Receipts.... New York: American News Co., 1874.

1882: Plum Pudding
  • 1 cup soft bread crumbs
  • 1 cup finely chopped suet
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup seeded raisins
  • 1 cup seedless raisins
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 cup sliced citron
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten well
  • 1/2 cup milk
Mixed the bread crumbs, suet, sugar, fruits, and nuts. Sift together the flour, spices, and salt. Combine the two mixtures, and once combined, add the eggs and the milk. Butter a covered pudding mold well and dredge with sugar. Have a large pot on the stove half-full of boiling water, and have a kettle with boiling water going as well. Place a rack or upside down pie tin on the bottom of the pot and place the covered pudding mold onto it so that the top is not submerged. Put a lid on the pot. Keep the water in the pot constantly boiling, adding more from the kettle as necessary, until the pudding is done, about two hours. Serve with a hard or foamy sauce.
- De Graf, Belle. The California Practical Cook Book. Oakland, Cal.: Pacific Press Pub. Co., 1882.

1882: Pumpkin Pie
  • 1 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
  • 1/3 cup orange marmalade
  • Pastry crust
Put all the ingredients into the top of a double boiler and cook until somewhat thick. Pour into a pastry lined pie dish. Pre-heat the oven to 400°
, place the pie into the oven, and immediately reduce to 305°. Bake the pie until the filling is set.
- De Graf, Belle. The California Practical Cook Book. Oakland, Cal.: Pacific Press Pub. Co., 1882.

1885: Squash Pie
  • 1 Hubbard squash
  • 4 cups milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp mace
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Crust
  • Nutmeg or grated lemon rind
Cut the Hubbard squash into 2in square pieces, remove the seeds, and skin. Cook it by either steaming it, boiling it, or roasting it. If boiling it, drain the water and pat dry. Using a potato masher, turn into a thick paste. For every four cups of squash, add to it the amount of milk, eggs, spices, salt, and sugar in the recipe. Use the mixture to fill two crust lined pie plates. This pie does not have a top crust. Sprinkle either a little nutmeg or grated lemon rind on top. Bake until done.
- Corson, Juliet. Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery And Household Management: an Every-day Book for American Housekeepers, Giving the Most Acceptable Etiquette of American Hospitality, And Comprehensive And Minute Directions for Marketing, Carving, And General Table-service, Together With Suggestions for the Diet of Children And the Sick. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1885.

1886: Pumpkin Pie
  • 1 pie pumpkin, baked, or 1 15-16 oz can of pumpkin
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp mace
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • Ground nutmeg to sprinkle on top
  • Crust
If using a pie pumpkin, cut into pieces and bake in the oven until soft. Once soft, mash, and proceed as if using canned pumpkin.
Mix pumpkin, milk, eggs, spices except nutmeg, and salt together. Pour into pie pans lined with a pie crust, sprinkle with nutmeg, and bake until done. Adding a tbsp of molasses with make a darker, richer pie.
- Ballou's Monthly Magazine Boston, Mass.: Elliott, Thomes & Talbot, vol. 64, 1886.

1893: Grape Sherbet
  • 4 cups of grape juice
  • 1 cup sugar + enough to sweeten juice to taste
  • 2 cups orange juice
  • 1 egg white
  • 2 tbsps powdered sugar
Sweeten the grape juice to taste. Add the cup of sugar to the orange juice, and stir until dissolved. Add to the grape juice. Turn into an ice cream make, in batches, to freeze. When nearly frozen, remove, and start next batch. While freezing, beat the egg white and powdered sugar together. Once all the sherbet is nearly frozen, add in the egg white mixture and mix well. Keep in the freezer.
This quanitity is sufficient for twelve people.
- Table Talk. Philadelphia: Table Talk Publishing Company, vol. 8, 1893.

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