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Hasty Puffs
Stir two ounces of flour quickly and smoothly into half a pint of boiling milk which has been sweetened and flavoured with lemon-rind or nutmeg. Boil up, then add two ounces of butter, and, when cool, two eggs, well beaten. Butter four small moulds. Pour a quarter of the mixture into each, and bake in a good oven. Turn out before serving, and place a little jam on the top of each puff. Time, ten to fifteen minutes to bake. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for four persons.
A small panada pudding, close kin to choux paste, made in four moulds and turned out hot. The whole thing hinges on the eggs, so treat them carefully.
- Let the paste cool before the eggsBeaten eggs stirred into a hot flour paste scramble, and the puffs will be granular and refuse to rise. Cool the mixture to about blood heat, then beat the eggs in one at a time until the paste is glossy and drops reluctantly from the spoon.
- "Half a pint" is imperialCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so half a pint is 10 fl oz, or 1¼ US cups. Two ounces of flour is a scant half cup, and two ounces of butter is half a stick.
- "A good oven"The book gives no temperatures; "good" here implies a brisk, steady heat, for which roughly 400-425F is a reasonable modern equivalent. The puffs need the initial heat to set the shell and drive the steam that lifts them. Do not open the door in the first ten minutes.
- The mouldsSmall moulds here most likely means dariole moulds or similar deep metal cups. The mixture is divided four ways, so allow headroom for the rise rather than filling to the brim. Buttered ramekins work; butter them heavily and to the very rim, or the batter grips as it climbs and tears.
- TimingTen to fifteen minutes is right for genuinely small moulds. Anything larger needs longer, and an underbaked puff collapses within seconds of leaving the oven, so bake until the sides are firm and well coloured rather than by the clock.
- Flavouring the milkPare the lemon rind in wide strips with no pith, infuse it in the milk as it heats, then lift it out before stirring in the flour. Nutmeg can simply be grated in and left.
- SweeteningNo quantity is given. About an ounce of sugar (2 tablespoons) to the half pint suits the jam topping; more than that softens the structure.
- Yield and servingFour small puffs, one per person, and they are meant to be eaten straight from the oven. Turn them out, spoon jam on top and send them at once; they deflate as they cool.
The technique here is the old cookery panada — flour cooked into hot liquid, enriched with butter, then loosened with egg — the same base that produces choux paste, quenelles and forcemeat binders. "Hasty" in period English cookery generally signals a dish thickened quickly with flour or meal rather than left to set or steam for hours, the same sense preserved in hasty pudding; against a steamed suet pudding of three hours, fifteen minutes in the oven was indeed hasty. The costing of 6d for four is characteristic of Cassell's, which was written for households running to a careful weekly budget and gave a probable cost for its dishes so a cook could compare one sweet against another before deciding.