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Cheesecakes, Apple
Grate half a pound of apples, weighed after they are pared and cored, add the grated rinds of two lemons, half a pound of melted butter, half a pound of finely-sifted sugar, and the well-beaten yolks of six eggs. Line the tartlet-tins, three-parts fill them with the mixture, and bake in a quick oven. Time to bake, fifteen or twenty minutes. Probable cost, 2d. each. Sufficient for three dozen cheesecakes. (See APPLE CHEESECAKES.)
A Victorian lemon-and-apple tartlet filling, closer to a fruit curd than to anything a modern reader means by cheesecake. There is no cheese in it and no baked custard set in a tin — just thirty-six small pastry cases.
- The hinge: keep the heat off the yolksSix yolks in half a pound of melted butter is a curd, and it will scramble or weep if driven too hard. The book gives no temperatures for its oven terms; a "quick oven" is simply a hot one, and these are safer nearer 400-410F for 15-20 minutes, until the filling is just set and no longer sloshes when the tin is nudged.
- WeightsHalf a pound is 225 g each of apple (weighed pared and cored), butter and sugar. "Finely-sifted sugar" is closest to modern caster sugar; granulated sifted through a fine sieve will not become caster, so buy caster or blitz granulated briefly.
- Pastry is assumedThe recipe says only "line the tartlet-tins." A short crust, or trimmings of puff pastry, is the likely intention. Line the tins first and chill them while you mix, since the wet filling will soften unrested pastry.
- Grate the apples lastGrated apple browns within minutes. Use a firm tart cooking apple, grate straight into the lemon rind and sugar, and get the mixture into the cases promptly.
- Lemon rind, not juiceTwo lemons' worth of grated rind carries the whole flavour here; take only the yellow zest, as the white pith turns the filling bitter. Nothing in the recipe adds acid, so a squeeze of juice is a defensible modern liberty.
- Three-parts full means itThe filling puffs as the yolks set and subsides on cooling. Filled to the brim it runs over and welds the tartlets to the tin.
- Yield and keepingThree dozen small tartlets — a large batch by modern standards, easily halved. Because they are egg-and-butter based, keep them refrigerated and eat within two days; they are best the day they are made.
- The stated cost"Probable cost, 2d. each" against a yield of three dozen would put the batch at six shillings, which looks high for the ingredients listed. It may be a slip, perhaps for a cost per dozen, but that is a guess rather than a reading the text supports.
In English cookery "cheesecake" originally meant a tart filled with fresh curds, and by the eighteenth century the word had drifted to cover almost any rich, sweet, egg-thickened tartlet filling whether or not cheese appeared in it — Richmond maids of honour, lemon cheesecakes, almond cheesecakes and apple cheesecakes like this one all belong to that family. What holds them together is the method rather than the ingredient: yolks, sugar and a great deal of butter beaten with a flavouring and baked in small pastry cases, which is the same construction as lemon curd set in pastry. Cassell's, working as a dictionary rather than a cookbook, files the dish under both C and A and cross-refers the reader to APPLE CHEESECAKES, a habit that tells you the volume was meant to be consulted like a reference work rather than read through.