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Custard, Cherry
Make a rich custard (see CUSTARD A LA REINE).
Put six or eight macaroons at the bottom of a glass dish, and over these lay a cupful of cherries which have been used for making cherry-brandy, with their juice. When the macaroons have absorbed the juice, pour the custard over them, and garnish the dish with macaroons and cherries. Time, one hour. Probable cost, 2s. 6d., exclusive of the cherry-brandy. Sufficient for a good-sized dish.
An assembly dish rather than a cooked one: the only real cookery is the custard, and everything depends on getting that right. Cassell's assumes you have a jar of brandied cherries already sitting in the larder.
- The hinge: the custardA "rich custard" here is a stirred egg custard, thickened over gentle heat and never allowed to boil. Take it to about 175F, when it coats the back of a spoon, then strain it at once into a cold bowl; a few seconds past that and you have sweet scrambled egg.
- Custard à la reineCustard a la reine -- The recipe cross-refers to the book's Custard a la Reine, which must be looked up separately. If working without it, a serviceable proportion for a rich stirred custard is 6 egg yolks and 2 oz sugar to a pint of milk, or half milk and half cream, flavoured with vanilla or a strip of lemon peel.
- MacaroonsNineteenth-century macaroons are crisp almond biscuits, close to Italian amaretti, not the coconut heaps or French macarons sold under the name now. Six or eight amaretti will do the job; coconut macaroons will not absorb the juice the same way.
- The cherriesThese are the fruit strained out of homemade cherry brandy, so they carry a good deal of spirit and are already sweetened. Good-quality brandied cherries in their syrup substitute directly; modern maraschino cherries are not soaked in spirit and are not the same thing. Because the alcohol is never cooked off, the dish is not suitable for children.
- Assembly and temperatureLet the macaroons take up the cherry juice for a few minutes first, as instructed, then pour over custard that has cooled to lukewarm. Boiling-hot custard will collapse the biscuits into paste and can crack a glass dish.
- "Time, one hour"Most likely working time plus soaking rather than cooking, since nothing here is cooked but the custard. The dish will benefit from being made several hours ahead and chilled, though the book does not say so.
- Yield and cost"A good-sized dish" suggests six to eight servings. The 2s. 6d. is Victorian pricing, and the cost is explicitly given exclusive of the cherry-brandy, which is costed separately.
Cherry custard belongs to the large Victorian family of glass-dish sweets -- trifles, charlottes, and "creams" built from a stirred custard poured over soaked biscuit. Its subject is thrift: cherry brandy was made at home by steeping stoned cherries in spirit and sugar, and the drained fruit, still soaked with liquor, was too good to throw away. Cassell's is arranged as a dictionary, so the recipe sits alphabetically under Custard, and its instruction to see Custard a la Reine is typical of a format that expects readers to work back and forth across the alphabet rather than find every recipe complete in one place.