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Orange Custard
Strain the juice of four oranges over four ounces of loaf sugar, put it into an enamelled saucepan, and stir it over a gentle fire until the whole is dissolved. When the liquid is almost cold, add three-quarters of a pint of thick cream and the well-beaten yolks of four eggs. Put the custard in a jar, place this in a saucepan of boiling water, and stir it until it thickens; serve either in a glass dish, or in custard cups, and strew over the top a little orange-rind cut into very thin strips. Time, about a quarter of an hour to boil the custard. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A stirred custard sharpened with orange juice — the acid is the whole difficulty, since it will curdle egg and cream given any excuse. Gentle heat and patience are the only technique required.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerAcid lowers the temperature at which egg proteins seize, so this custard will scramble sooner than a plain one. Hold the water at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil, stir constantly, and pull it off at 175-180F, when it coats the back of a spoon.
- Three-quarters of a pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 15 imperial fl oz — about 1 3/4 US cups, or 425 ml. "Thick cream" means double cream at roughly 48% fat; US heavy cream at 36% works but gives a looser set.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold in hard cones to be broken up and rasped; four ounces is 115 g of ordinary granulated sugar, and it dissolves in the juice with no need to think about it.
- Why enamelledVictorian saucepans were commonly tinned copper or iron, which can react with acidic juice and give it a metallic taste or dull colour, particularly where the tinning is worn. Any modern stainless or enamelled pan is fine; avoid bare aluminium and unlined copper.
- The jar in the saucepanThis is a bain-marie improvised from a stoneware jar. A heatproof bowl over a pan of water, or a double boiler, does the same job, and the water should not touch the base of the bowl.
- "About a quarter of an hour"Fifteen minutes is a reasonable estimate over water at a gentle simmer, but go by texture, not the clock. If it does thicken unevenly, straining it immediately into a cold bowl will rescue most of it.
- Orange juice and rindFour modern oranges give roughly 250-320 ml of juice; if the custard tastes very sharp or seems slow to set, hold some juice back. Pare the rind with a peeler before juicing and use unwaxed fruit.
- ServingFour or five small glasses. It sets soft rather than firm — a pouring-to-spooning custard, not a baked one — and is best served cold, with the rind strewn over at the last moment.
Orange custards appear in English cookery books from the eighteenth century onward in much this form: juice, sugar, cream and yolks, thickened over water and sent up in little cups. They belong to the family of "creams" and "custards" served cold in glass, alongside jellies and syllabubs, so that the colour showed.