Picnic Pie Recipes

Grandma's old fashioned picnic pie recipes are easy to make when the steps are followed, and they taste as delicious as they look. Choose from sweet or savory pies to take on your next picnic outing, but be sure to make enough to go around.

Who doesn't love a pie? Even the ants do. Look — I think I just saw one! So be sure to keep your homemade pies tightly covered until you are ready to serve the dessert.

Old Fashioned Picnic Pie Recipes

One Hundred Picnic Suggestions (1915)

Sweet Pies for Picnics

Fruit Tarts, French Style

Make or buy puff paste tart cases rather deep. Drain syrup from any canned or preserved fruit, mash large fruit (peaches or apricots), or use the berries or fruit in slices.

To 2 cups of the syrup add 1 cup of sugar and boil until it is quite thick. Add 1 tablespoon of gelatin dissolved in 1/4 cup of cold water.

Put the fruit in the cases, and when the syrup is slightly cool pour it over the fruit. Minced nuts may be sprinkled over the fruit.

When cold wrap each one in waxed paper and pack in a box with cardboard, and more paper between each layer. These picnic pie recipes may also be made with rich plain paste.

Fruit Turnovers

The filling for these may be rich and well-seasoned applesauce, pineapple, plums, berries, cherries, stewed and mashed peaches, apricots, or prunes, or a good mincemeat.

Roll pastry dough into rounds about 6 inches in diameter, place a spoonful of the fruit on half of each round, wet edges with cold water, press the other half over, pinching the edges well together, and fry in deep fat.

These may also be baked in the oven if preferred. Dust them with powdered sugar, wrap each one in waxed paper and then place in a box.

Fried Cakes en Surprise

Sift 3-1/2 cups of flour with 5 teaspoons of baking powder and 3/4 teaspoon salt 3 times, add 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar to 2 large or 3 small eggs beaten very light, 3 tablespoons of soft butter, 1 tablespoon vanilla, and 5 drops of oil of nutmeg. Add the flour, alternately, with 1 cup of milk, adding more flour as required.

Roll dough as soft as possible and quite thin, cut into rounds with biscuit cutter, place the surprise — a spoonful of baked apple, thick custard, jelly, jam, or marmalade in center, wet edges with egg white, cover with other rounds, pinch edges, and fry in deep fat. Dust with powdered sugar and wrap each one in waxed paper.

Savory Pies for Picnics

Little Meat Pies

Line large, deep patty tins with rich pastry, cut the remainder of the dough into rounds to fit the tins and cut a slit in the center of each.

Fill the pies with diced cooked chicken, lamb, or veal, adding a very little diced ham or broiled bacon, if at hand, pour in strong, highly seasoned stock, add a little minced parsley and grated onion, wet edges of the pastry in cold water and press on the covers.

Bake in a hot oven (425°F). Just before taking from the oven brush with slightly beaten egg-white to glaze them. When cold, remove from the tins and pack each one in waxed paper and lay them in a box.

Beefsteak and Ham Pie

For this savory picnic pie recipe, line a shallow baking dish with a thin layer of minced ham, mixed with half the amount of tomato sauce, highly seasoned.

Add thin strips of cold broiled beefsteak, minced parsley, and a few chopped fresh mushrooms, if at hand, and put an inverted custard cup in the center, or make a hole in the crust and insert a funnel of thick, buttered paper.

Cover with a rich baking-powder biscuit crust, prick it with a fork, brush over with slightly beaten egg white mixed with milk, and bake (425°F).

When done remove funnel and pour in a cup of strong stock, to which 1 tablespoon of softened gelatin has been added.

Ham Shortcakes

Roll thin and cut into rounds a rich baking-powder crust, spread half of them with minced ham moistened with melted butter and seasoned with minced parsley, onion, and paprika. Cover with the remainder of the rounds and bake in a hot oven (425°F).

For making the biscuits:

Sift 2 cups of pastry flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 4 teaspoons of baking-powder, chop in 1 teaspoon butter and 1 tablespoon of lard, add milk to make a soft dough, mix lightly, with the fingers, and roll as directed.

These may be mixed, put in pans and placed in the icebox several hours before baking. They should be very cold when put in the very hot oven (425°F).

Bologna Biscuits

Roll baking-powder biscuit dough quite thin, cut in rounds the size of a bologna sausage, and place a thin slice of the sausage between each two rounds. Bake in a quick oven (425°F).

The skin may be removed from the sausage and the disks cut to fit the biscuit, if necessary. This, of course, should be done before making the biscuit.

If liked, a very little French or German mustard may be spread on each slice of sausage before laying them on the biscuit.

Old Fashioned Picnic Pie Recipes From Mom's Recipe Box

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (1920s)

Homemade Berry Pie

2 cups berries, in season
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
Plain pastry, enough for covered pie

For this old fashioned picnic pie recipe, mix cornstarch with sugar and salt. Heat with berries. Fill lower crust with fruit. Place well-pricked upper crust (without stretching). Fasten crust edges well; that juice may be kept in.

Bake in hot oven (450°F) for first 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 410°F and continue baking for 30 minutes.

Lemon Sponge Pie

1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites, beaten
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 teaspoons pastry flour
1 cup milk
1 unbaked pie shell

For this old fashioned picnic pie recipe, cream sugar and butter. Add egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, and flour. Mix well, then add milk, and mix. Fold in beaten egg whites until smooth.

Pour mixture into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 400°F for approximately 10 minutes, then at 375°F for approximately until pie is light brown in color and set. —W. Norton

Sour Cream Tarts

1 cup sour cream
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
Flavor with lemon to taste

Bake in under-crust until done. Put a few currants on top of each tart, if desired.

Easy Blender Coconut Pie

2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bisquick® mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup butter
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flake coconut

For this quick-and-easy picnic pie recipe, combine all the above ingredients in a blender for 3 minutes on low speed. Pour into a pie plate and let stand 5 minutes. Sprinkle with coconut.

Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. —M. Foottit

Savory Picnic Pie Recipe

Ryzon Baking Book (1917)

Campfire Pot Pie

Fresh meat or game
Potatoes
Onions
Salt and pepper
Sliced bacon or salt pork

For Dumplings:

1-1/2 level cupfuls (6 ounces) flour
3 level teaspoonfuls Ryzon (baking powder)
1 level teaspoonful salt
1 level teaspoonful (1/2 ounce) shortening
1/4 cupful (1-1/2 gills) water

Cut the game or meat into medium-sized pieces. Season highly with salt and pepper, add strips of bacon, and cover with hot water (in a kettle over fire).

After it begins to boil, hang kettle higher over fire so that it may cook more slowly. See that the liquid in the pot does not become more reduced than one-third.

Prepare vegetables for pie.

About half an hour before the time to serve, make a soft dumpling dough of the flour, Ryzon (baking powder), salt, shortening, and water. Roll this dough out, one-half inch thick, and cut into strips.

Pour off broth into another dish and remove most of the meat.

Put a layer of meat, sliced potatoes, and sliced onion, in the bottom of the kettle, partially cover with strips of dough, and repeat, until materials are all used.

Pour over this the hot broth, cover closely, and return to the fire to boil for twenty minutes.

Note —The quantities of meat and vegetables used in this old fashioned picnic pie recipe will depend solely upon the number to be served. Dumpling recipe will serve six people.