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Creamed Tartlets
Line some tartlet-tins with good puff paste, and put rather less jam on them than is usual. Place a little good custard over the jam, and on the top of the custard an icing made by mixing a table-spoonful of sifted white sugar with the white of one egg whisked to a solid froth. Place a little of this over each tartlet and bake in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes. Probable cost, 2d. each. Sufficient, six or eight for a dish.
A layered tartlet — pastry, jam, custard, meringue — that depends almost entirely on the custard being thick enough to hold its place. Everything else is straightforward.
- The hinge: a stiff custard"Good custard" is not defined here, but for this to work it needs to be a thick, cooked custard, cooled before use; many cooks thickened such custards with a little flour or cornflour. A pouring custard will thin out in the oven, seep into the jam and lift the meringue off in a wet layer. Spread it cold and sparingly.
- Moderate oven350F/175C. That is right for setting a thin meringue and colouring the puff pastry edges, though twenty minutes is the outer limit before the meringue starts to take on more colour than you want.
- Puff paste and blind bakingPuff paste -- Line small tins with rolled puff pastry, prick the bases, and chill them before filling. The recipe does not blind bake. Victorian tartlet-tins were generally small and shallow; a mini muffin or patty tin is a reasonable modern stand-in.
- The icing is a lean meringueOne tablespoon of sugar to one egg white is far less sugar than a modern meringue uses, so it sets soft and dries rather than crisping. Whisk the white to firm peaks first, then fold the sifted sugar in. If you want a topping that holds and browns evenly, two tablespoons per white is more reliable.
- Less jam than usualThe instruction is deliberate. Jam boils, expands and runs; with custard and meringue stacked above it, a generous spoonful will force its way out at the edges. Keep it to a thin smear.
- Cost and yield"2d. each" is twopence in pre-decimal currency, a period price note rather than an instruction. The recipe makes six to eight tartlets, enough for one serving dish.
- ServingCool in the tins for a few minutes, then lift out and serve the same day. The meringue softens against the custard overnight.
It reads like an exercise in assembly: three preparations a cook would already have to hand -- puff paste, boiled custard, whisked white icing -- combined in one small shell. The pattern of jam under custard under meringue is shared with Queen of Puddings and with lemon meringue pie, and a kitchen making custard for one dish would have spare whites to whisk for another. The "probable cost" figures throughout Cassell's suggest a readership costing dishes closely, and the "sufficient" note gives the yield as a dishful rather than as individual plates.