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Apricot Custard
Line a pie-dish with a good short crust. Spread smoothly at the bottom a layer of apricot marmalade about an inch in thickness, and pour over it a custard made of a pint of new milk, three eggs, and a tea-spoonful of ground rice, a little sugar, and four drops of the essence of almonds. Bake in a quick oven. Time to bake, fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A custard tart with a jam base, written for cooks who understood ovens by feel. The one instruction to disregard is the temperature: a quick oven will curdle the eggs long before the filling sets.
- Oven, and why the original is wrongA "quick oven" is generally reckoned at somewhere around 400-450F, which suits the pastry but is too hot for the custard. Bake the tart at 325-350F until the filling is just set with a slight wobble at the centre; fifteen minutes is likely too short at any workable temperature, and 30-45 minutes is more realistic.
- Blind-bake the crustSince the custard now bakes slowly and moderately, the shortcrust will not colour on its own. Line the dish, chill it, blind-bake at 400F until dry and pale gold, then add the jam and custard.
- Apricot marmaladeIn this period "marmalade" meant any thick fruit preserve reduced to a paste, not necessarily citrus. Use a stiff apricot jam or a reduced apricot puree; a loose, syrupy jam will bleed up into the custard.
- New milkMilk fresh from the cow, unskimmed and not yet soured. Whole milk is the equivalent; a pint here is a British Imperial pint, 20 fl oz (about 570 ml), so a little under 2 1/2 US cups.
- Ground riceRice milled to a fine meal, slightly coarser than rice flour, acting here as a starch stabiliser against a curdled or weeping custard. A teaspoon in this quantity of milk is a light touch; whisk it into the cold milk before adding the eggs so it does not clump.
- Essence of almondsVictorian almond essence was based on bitter almond and strongly flavoured, so four drops was a meaningful dose. With modern almond extract, begin with a comparable few drops and taste; more will overwhelm the apricot.
- Sugar"A little sugar" assumes a well-sweetened jam beneath. Two tablespoons in the custard is enough to balance the eggs without making the tart cloying.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives four or five portions; a pie dish of about 9 inches will suit. Cool at least to warm before cutting, or the custard will slump; it is better still cold.
Cassell's ran on a system of building-block recipes, and this is one of them: a plain baked custard poured over a layer of preserve in a pastry case, the same logic that produces a Manchester pudding or the jam-lined custard tarts of countless nineteenth-century household books. Apricot preserve was a common choice in the Victorian pastry kitchen, valued because its acidity and pectin let it hold a firm layer and glaze without running. The costing in shillings and pence, and the note on how many it serves, are house style throughout the dictionary; a pudding at 1s. 6d. that fed five was information worth printing.