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Snow Custard
Add to one quart of milk eight eggs, leaving out the whites of four; stir into this five ounces of sugar; put a shallow pan of hot water in the oven and set the dish of custard in it; bake until thick, then put aside to cool; beat the four whites solid, add half a pound of sugar and a teaspoonful of lemon juice. When the custard is cold lay the whites over the top in heaps, but do not let them touch.
A baked custard in a water bath with an uncooked meringue spooned over it once cold. The book gives no oven temperature and no time, so the doneness cues matter more than the clock.
- The hinge: bake gently and stop earlyCustard sets between 170 and 175F; past about 180F the proteins tighten and weep. Set the oven at 325F and pull the dish when the edges are set but a circle in the centre still trembles as a unit — it finishes firming as it cools.
- Quantities in modern termsOne quart of milk is 4 cups. Five ounces of sugar is a scant 3/4 cup. "Eight eggs, leaving out the whites of four" means four whole eggs plus four yolks, with the four reserved whites going into the meringue.
- The water bath"A shallow pan of hot water" should come halfway up the sides of the custard dish, and the water should be hot from the tap or kettle when it goes in, not cold. A folded towel under the dish keeps the base from cooking faster than the top.
- Raw whites on topThe meringue here is never cooked — it is simply heaped on the cold custard. Beaten raw egg white carries a real if small salmonella risk, so use pasteurised whites, or brown the heaps briefly under a hot broiler, which also helps them hold their shape.
- Half a pound of sugar is a lotHalf a pound is a lot -- Eight ounces of sugar to four whites is about twice what a modern soft meringue topping uses, though not far off the ratio for a stiff meringue, and it gives a dense, very sweet, marshmallowy foam. Adding it a spoonful at a time once the whites hold soft peaks keeps it from deflating; four to five ounces makes a lighter result.
- Timing and yieldExpect 50 to 70 minutes at 325F for a quart of custard in one dish, or 30 to 35 minutes in individual ramekins. It serves eight, and the custard must be thoroughly cold — several hours in the refrigerator — before the meringue goes on.
Snow custard belongs to a family of Victorian and Edwardian "snow" desserts — snow eggs, snow pudding, floating island — all built on the trick of splitting eggs so the yolks enrich a custard while the whites are beaten into something white and cloudlike to sit on top. The French version, oeufs à la neige, poaches its meringue in milk; English and American versions frequently skip that step and simply pile the raw foam on, which is what this recipe does. Nothing in it is expensive except the eggs, and the appeal is largely visual, a dish that turns a plain baked custard into something worth carrying to the table whole. Turn-of-the-century books rarely gave oven temperatures because ranges had no thermostats; a cook judged a slow oven by hand and knew that a custard wanted the gentlest heat the fire could hold.