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Plum Tart
Line the edge of a tart-dish with puff-paste or with good short crust. Fill the dish with plums, and sprinkle a little moist sugar over them. The quantity of sugar required will depend upon the quality of the plums. Cover the dish with pastry, bake in a moderate oven, and serve the tart hot or cold. The appearance of the tart will be improved if it is glazed. To do this, take it from the oven before it is quite done enough. Brush it over with white of egg which has been whisked to a froth, and cover with finely-sifted sugar. Sprinkle a few drops of water over it, and return it to the oven to set the glaze. Or, before putting it in the oven, brush it quickly with cold water and sprinkle white sugar upon it. Probable cost, 1s. for a moderate-sized tart.
A British deep-dish fruit pie with no bottom crust — the pastry sits only on the rim and over the top. A few conventions in the original need translating.
- The tart-dishThis means a deep oval or round pie dish with a wide flat rim. The strip of pastry pressed onto the dampened rim gives the lid something to seal against; without it the top crust slides into the fruit as it cooks. A modern deep pie plate works, but choose one with a proper lip.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as somewhere around 350-375F; the book gives no temperature. Reckon on roughly 40-50 minutes, and judge by the crust rather than the clock.
- Plums and stonesThe book does not say whether to stone them; period practice went both ways, and stoning is easier to eat. Reckon on about 1.5-2 lb of fruit for a dish this size, mounded slightly above the rim since plums collapse.
- How much sugarThe vagueness is honest — plum varieties range from sharp damsons to sugary Victorias. Start at 3 oz (about 1/3 cup) for dessert plums and go to 6 oz for damsons or underripe fruit, and taste a raw slice first.
- Juice managementPlums give off a great deal of liquid and there is no bottom crust to protect. A tablespoon of cornflour or semolina tossed with the fruit, or a pie funnel in the centre to vent steam, keeps the filling from boiling up under the lid.
- The two glazesThe egg-white-and-sugar version is the better one: it sets into a crisp meringue-like crust. Do it in the last 8–10 minutes at 350F, and use caster or icing sugar, not granulated, or it will not dissolve. The cold-water-and-sugar method applied before baking is the quicker, plainer finish.
- Probable costOne shilling was a real sum in a modest household's weekly budget when Cassell's was compiled, though fruit under a lid of pastry was still plain cooking rather than a luxury.
- YieldSix servings from a moderate dish. Serve with cream or custard.
The lidded fruit tart with pastry only on the rim and top is a characteristically British form, and Cassell's treats it as too obvious to explain — the same construction served gooseberries, rhubarb, apples and blackcurrants as the season turned. Plums were the late-summer entry: England's orchard and cottage-garden varieties, from damsons to greengages to the Victoria plum, which came into commercial cultivation in the mid-nineteenth century, arrived in quantity and cheaply, which is why the recipe worries about sugar rather than about fruit. The optional glazing suggests a book written with an eye to a well-presented table, and the note that it may be served hot or cold means it could reappear at a later meal.