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Cheesecakes, Bread
Pour a breakfast-cupful of boiling milk over eight ounces of finely-grated bread-crumbs, and when they have soaked a little while, beat them up with three ounces of butter, melted. When quite cold, add three ounces of finely-sifted sugar, three ounces of currants, picked and dried, and half a small nutmeg grated. Last of all add the yolks of four and the whites of three eggs, beaten up with a table-spoonful of brandy. Line the tartlet-tins with a good light crust. Rather more than half fill them with the mixture, and bake in a quick oven for fifteen or twenty minutes. Probable cost, 1 1/2d. each. Sufficient for three dozen cheesecakes.
A Victorian "cheesecake" of the bread-crumb sort — no cheese in it at all. The mixture is quick to assemble but the order of operations matters more than the quantities.
- Let the crumb base go coldThe recipe insists on "quite cold" before the sugar and eggs go in, and it means it. Warm crumbs will set the yolks into threads before the tarts reach the oven.
- A breakfast-cupfulRoughly 8 to 10 fl oz — use 1 cup (240 ml) of milk. Breakfast cups ran larger than teacups, so err on the generous side; the crumbs should be moist and thick, not soupy.
- Bread-crumbsFinely grated crumb from a day-old white loaf, not dry packaged crumbs, which are far more absorbent and will drink the milk into a paste. Eight ounces of fresh crumb is about 4 cups, loosely packed.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400-450°F (200-230°C). Fifteen to twenty minutes at that heat sets the filling and colours the pastry in one go; there is no blind baking here and none is needed.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, the small black raisin — not fresh red or black currants. "Picked" refers to sorting out stems and grit, "dried" to drying the fruit after washing; modern packaged fruit has largely had both.
- NutmegHalf a small nutmeg, freshly grated, is roughly 1/2 to 1 teaspoon. Pre-ground is weaker and flatter; grate it if you can.
- The odd egg countFour yolks and three whites is deliberate — the extra yolk enriches without loosening the set. Save the spare white for something else rather than tipping it in.
- Tins and yieldThree dozen means shallow patty or tartlet tins of about 2 to 2 1/2 inches, not muffin cups. Fill a little over half full; the mixture rises and then settles as it cools.
- Cost"1 1/2d. each" is one and a half old pence — a pricing note for household accounting, of no use now.
English cheesecakes of this period frequently contain no cheese, and the name had long since drifted from its origin: medieval and Tudor cheesecakes were made with fresh curds, and as curd went out of everyday use the term stayed attached to any small open tart with a rich, thickened filling — lemon cheesecakes, almond cheesecakes, bread cheesecakes. Here stale bread-crumbs stand in for ground almonds or curd. The spoonful of brandy and grated nutmeg are standard Victorian sweet-pastry seasoning.