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Buckeye Cream Puffs
Five eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, one and a half cups each of white sugar and sifted flour, two tea-spoons baking powder in the flour; bake in tea-cups, filling about half full. The cream is prepared by placing a small tin pail containing a pint sweet milk in a kettle of boiling water; beat the whites and yolks of two eggs separately; stir in the milk while boiling, a half tea-cup sugar, a large table-spoon corn starch dissolved in a little sweet milk, then the beaten yolks and a piece of butter the size of a large walnut; flavor with lemon or vanilla. When done, cut the cakes open, put in a spoonful of the cream, place together again, roll in the whites, and then in coarse granulated sugar. -Mrs. A. S. Chapman.
Despite the name, these are not choux pastry: the batter is a plain sponge baked in teacups, split and filled with a stovetop custard. The custard is the part that needs attention.
- Do not let the custard boilOnce the beaten yolks go into the hot milk the mixture must stay below a simmer, around 175-180F, or it will scramble. Temper by stirring a ladle of the hot milk into the yolks first, then return everything to the pan. The cornstarch gives some protection against curdling, though there is only a large spoonful to the pint here.
- The tin pail in a kettleThat is a double boiler. Use a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, or a heavy saucepan over low heat if you are attentive.
- Teacups as moldsNineteenth-century tea-cups varied, but something in the region of 6 fl oz is a fair working assumption. Butter and flour ovenproof cups or a muffin tin, fill half full, and expect roughly a dozen cakes. Deep muffin cups work well and give the same domed shape.
- OvenThe recipe gives none. A sponge batter of this kind wants a moderate oven, 350F, for about 18-22 minutes, until the tops spring back.
- Half a tea-cup of sugarTea-cup measures varied from book to book; if it is read as about three-quarters of a modern cup, half a tea-cup comes to roughly 6 tablespoons for the custard.
- Butter the size of a large walnutShelled, that is about 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons.
- Baking powderCommercial baking powders of the 1870s and 80s were single-acting and varied in strength and quality. Two level teaspoons for a cup and a half of flour is still within reason, but do not heap them.
- The raw white coatingThe whites used to glue the sugar to the outside are never cooked. If you are serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized egg whites, and keep the filled cakes refrigerated since the custard is dairy and egg.
- Coarse granulated sugarUse a coarse grade such as what is now sold as sanding sugar; ordinary granulated will tend to dissolve into the wet white. Serve the same day; the sponge dries quickly and the sugar crust weeps.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (first issued at Marysville, Ohio, in 1876 and much reprinted) was assembled from contributions by named local women, which is why this page carries Mrs. A. S. Chapman's name rather than an anonymous house style. The book appeared as chemical leavening was becoming a household staple, and its cake chapters include sponge batters raised with baking powder rather than by long-beaten eggs alone. The name "cream puff" was used loosely in some nineteenth-century American books for cakes split and filled with a boiled custard, or "cream," as well as for true pate a choux puffs.