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ORANGE CUSTARD (another way)
Boil the thin rind of a Seville orange until it is quite soft. Drain the water from it, and pound it in a mortar with four ounces of sifted sugar. Stir the mixture into a pint of boiling cream, and add the yolks of four eggs well beaten. Put the custard into a jug, set this in a pan of boiling water, and stir it over the fire until it begins to thicken. Pour it out, and stir it again until it is nearly cold; add a table-spoonful of brandy and the strained juice of the orange, and serve either in a glass dish or in cups. A little orange-peel, cut into very fine shreds, may be put on the top of the custard. If cream cannot be obtained, milk may be used; then the yolks of six eggs will be required. Time, a quarter of an hour to thicken the custard. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for a pint and a half of custard.
A stirred custard flavoured by pounding boiled orange rind into sugar, which extracts far more perfume than zest alone. The two things to watch are the cooking temperature and the moment the acid goes in.
- Seville orangesThe bitter Seville is in season only from late December to February in most markets. Out of season, use the rind of one ordinary orange plus a strip of lemon rind for the sharpness, and expect a milder result.
- Imperial measuresThe pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups of cream. Four ounces of sugar is a scant 2/3 cup; "sifted sugar" means finely ground white sugar, not confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch.
- The jug in boiling waterThis is a bain-marie, and the point is that the custard never touches direct heat. A heatproof bowl over barely simmering water does the same job; the water should not touch the bowl's base.
- Stop at the right temperatureEgg yolks set from about 170F and scramble past 185F. Pull the custard at 175-180F, when it coats the back of a spoon and a drawn finger leaves a clear track. A quarter of an hour is a fair estimate over gentle heat, but go by thickness, not the clock.
- Acid goes in last, and coldThe brandy and orange juice are added after the custard has cooled almost completely, and this is deliberate. Acid stirred into a hot custard risks curdling it.
- Milk versionSix yolks instead of four compensate for the missing butterfat. Whole milk only; skimmed will give a thin, watery set.
- Rind, not pith"The thin rind" means the coloured outer layer alone. Any white pith boiled and pounded with it will carry real bitterness into the finished custard.
- YieldA pint and a half fills six small custard cups or glasses. It keeps two days covered in the refrigerator; a skin will form unless pressed with plastic film.
Cassell's gives several orange custards because the dish sat at the comfortable centre of Victorian dessert-making: rich enough for a dinner party, and built on a pint of cream. The Seville orange, too sour to eat out of hand, reached Britain in a short midwinter season and was valued precisely for that bitterness, which is why it dominated marmalade, bitter-orange sauces and flavoured creams while sweet oranges went into the fruit bowl. Pounding boiled peel with sugar in a mortar draws out both the essential oil and the softened flesh of the rind, giving a fuller flavour than a modern zester manages. The instruction to substitute milk with two extra yolks reflects a period when cream was a genuine expense.