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Vanilla Cheesecakes
Melt three ounces of butter, and stir in two and a half ounces of loaf sugar, which has been rubbed on half a lemon and crushed. Stir till the sugar is melted and the mixture thick, then pour it by degrees to three beaten and strained eggs, beating hard all the time. Flavour when cold with half an ounce of vanilla sugar, a teaspoonful of vanilla essence, and a table-spoonful of brandy. Line some patty-pans with good paste, either short or flaky, put a little raspberry or red current jelly in first, and then fill up with the above mixture. Bake in a moderate oven. Probable cost, 2d. each.
A small baked custard tart in a jelly-lined pastry shell, despite the name containing no cheese at all. The recipe is straightforward once the archaic sugar and pan terms are translated.
- Loaf sugar rubbed on lemonLoaf sugar came as a hard cone that was broken up and used in lumps; rubbing a lump over the lemon skin strips the zest oils into the sugar. Use 2 1/2 oz (about 1/3 cup) granulated or caster sugar and the finely grated zest of half a lemon, then crush the two together with the back of a spoon.
- The hinge: temper the eggsThe hot butter-sugar mixture goes into the eggs "by degrees, beating hard all the time." Add it in a thin stream. Poured in at once it scrambles the eggs and no amount of beating will bring the filling back.
- Strained eggsPushing the beaten eggs through a sieve removes the chalazae and any unbroken albumen, which is what gives these small tarts a smooth set rather than a stringy one. Worth doing.
- Vanilla sugarHalf an ounce is about a tablespoon. Sugar stored with a split vanilla pod for a week or two does the job; failing that, use plain sugar and increase the essence slightly. Use real vanilla extract, not imitation, since there is very little else carrying the flavour.
- Patty-pans and pastePatty-pans are shallow tartlet or bun tins, roughly the size of a modern 12-cup muffin tray but not as deep. "Good paste, either short or flaky" means shortcrust or rough puff; both work, and the shells do not need blind baking as the filling is wet and cooks quickly.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350F (175C). Bake until the pastry is coloured and the filling is just set with the faintest wobble at the centre; start checking at about 18 minutes. Pushed further, the egg mixture puffs, then sinks and weeps.
- Jelly firstThe recipe says 'a little'; a scant half-teaspoon of raspberry or redcurrant jelly per shell is about right. Too much can boil up through the custard and over the rim.
- YieldThe quantities fill about twelve small tartlets. They are best the day they are baked, slightly warm or at room temperature.
English "cheesecakes" were originally tarts filled with fresh curd, and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the word had drifted loose from its ingredient entirely: cookery books of the period print lemon cheesecakes, almond cheesecakes and orange cheesecakes made with butter, sugar and eggs, often with little or no curd at all, though many such recipes did include cream or a measure of curd. What survived was the form, a small enriched filling in a pastry case, and the name. Cassell's gives a whole run of them, and the "probable cost, 2d. each" at the end is characteristic of the book's late-Victorian household audience, who were expected to cost a dish out before committing to it. The vanilla here is a mild luxury touch, appearing both as essence and as sugar scented with a pod.