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Ramakins, German
Take a pint of new milk, and simmer it in a saucepan, but do not let it boil; by degrees add three handfuls of flour, stirring all the time. When the paste is smooth and without lumps, put in a little salt, a piece of butter, and a quarter of a pound of Parmesan or Gruyere cheese, or both mixed--not grated, but cut into small slices. Stir the whole on the fire till the preparation is perfectly mixed. When it is boiled enough--which may readily be ascertained, as the paste will then easily roll from the saucepan--take it off the fire, beat up three eggs, and stir them in, keeping the paste hot till the moment of serving. Butter a dish that will stand the fire, or a baking-tin, pour in the paste, and set it in a moderate oven. The cake will rise in ten minutes, like a souffle, and be of a fine yellow colour. Serve at once.
This is a cheese panade — essentially the base of a soufflé or gougère made with milk instead of water — enriched with whole eggs and baked until it puffs. The Victorian phrasing hides a few things a modern cook needs pinned down.
- The hinge: dry the paste properlyThe instruction that everything depends on is cooking the flour-and-milk paste until it "will easily roll from the saucepan" — that is, until it forms a coherent ball that leaves a film on the pan bottom. An underdried panade makes a slack batter that will not rise.
- "Three handfuls of flour"Genuinely ambiguous, and it varies with the hand. Judge by behaviour rather than volume: add flour to the hot milk until you have a thick, smooth paste that pulls away cleanly. For a pint of milk this will land somewhere in the region of 1½ to 2 cups, but the texture is the test.
- New milkSimply fresh whole milk, unskimmed and unsoured. Ordinary whole milk is the right substitute; skimmed milk gives a weaker, less tender paste.
- A pintIf you are working from the British original, that is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml). A US pint of 16 fl oz will need proportionally less flour.
- The cheese, sliced not gratedA quarter pound is 4 oz (115 g). Slicing rather than grating is deliberate — the pieces melt into streaks and pockets rather than dissolving evenly, which is part of the character. Use genuine Parmigiano or Gruyère; pre-grated cheese with anti-caking starch will not behave the same way.
- EggsEggs of the period were generally smaller and much more variable than today's graded large eggs. Three modern large eggs into this quantity of paste is workable, but beat them in one at a time off the heat, letting each disappear before the next goes in, or the mixture will slacken and split.
- A moderate oven350°F (175°C). The ten-minute rise assumes the paste goes into the dish hot, so preheat thoroughly and do not let the mixture sit and cool. Expect closer to 20–25 minutes total for the centre to set in a deeper dish.
- "A dish that will stand the fire"Any ovenproof gratin dish or shallow baking tin. A wide, shallow vessel gives the best rise and browning; a deep one takes longer and can stay wet at the middle.
- Yield and servingEnough for about four as a savoury course or light lunch. It will sink somewhat as it cools, which is presumably why the original says serve at once — carry it straight to the table.
"Ramakin" (more usually ramequin) was for most of its history the name of a preparation, not a piece of crockery: a hot cheese dish, sometimes a cheese paste spread on toast and browned, sometimes a baked batter of the sort given here. The small glazed dish we now call a ramekin took its name from the food, not the other way round. The "German" version is this milk-and-flour panade bound with eggs — structurally close to a choux paste or a Burgundian gougère, and a cousin of the cheese soufflé. The naming of continental cheese dishes in Victorian cookbooks was loose. Parmesan and Gruyère both travelled well and kept for months, which made them useful pantry cheeses in a well-supplied British kitchen.