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Vanilla Custard
Cut half a pod of vanilla into pieces, and soak them for an hour in a pint of milk or cream. Stir four table-spoonfuls of sugar into it, and when this is dissolved add the well-beaten yolks of two, four, or six eggs. Put the custard in a bowl, and set this over a saucepan of boiling water. Keep stirring one way till it begins to thicken, but it must not boil. Stir occasionally till it is cold, and serve in a glass dish or in custard cups. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, and pile this on the custard at the moment of serving. Sift a little white sugar upon the custard, and it will be ready for the table. If liked, essence of vanilla may be used instead of the pod. Probable cost, if made with milk, 1s. to 1s. 6d. Sufficient for a little more than a pint of custard. Time, ten to fifteen minutes to make the custard.
A plain stirred custard (crème anglaise) cooked over water, with a raw meringue froth piled on at the last moment. The hinge is temperature: yolks set between about 170 and 180F, and a few degrees past that gives sweet scrambled egg.
- The pintCassell's is British, so a pint here is 20 imperial fluid ounces, about 2 1/2 US cups or 570 ml. Scaling by a US 16 oz pint gives a noticeably richer custard, which is no bad thing but is not what is written.
- Sugar and yolksFour tablespoonfuls of sugar is roughly 50-60 g. The two-four-six yolk range lets the cook choose the consistency: two yolks to the pint gives a pouring sauce, six a spoonable custard, with four somewhere between.
- Half a podHalf a vanilla bean, split lengthways and scraped into the milk along with the pod, rather than simply cut into pieces. If using extract instead, 1 to 2 teaspoons, stirred in after the custard has come off the heat so the flavour is not driven off.
- Heat controlSet the bowl over barely simmering water, not boiling, and do not let the base touch the water. Off the heat the moment the custard coats the back of a spoon and a drawn finger leaves a clean line: about 175F on an instant-read thermometer.
- TimingThe stated ten to fifteen minutes is optimistic for a bowl over water; over gently simmering water expect appreciably longer, with near-constant stirring. Rushing it with direct heat is the commonest way to curdle it.
- Stirring one wayA kitchen superstition of the period with no effect on the custard. What matters is that the stirring is continuous and reaches the bottom and corners of the bowl.
- CoolingStrain into a cold bowl the instant it thickens; this catches any threads of set white and stops the carryover cooking. Press cling film to the surface if you would rather not have a skin; the original's 'stir occasionally till it is cold' handles the same problem by stirring.
- The raw frothThe whisked whites go on uncooked and stay uncooked. That is a raw-egg exposure with no kill step, so use pasteurised whites, or brown the meringue briefly under a grill, or leave it off and serve the custard plain.
- YieldA little over a pint serves four in custard cups, or six as a sauce for stewed fruit or a sponge pudding.
Stirred egg custard is one of the foundation preparations of nineteenth-century English cookery, and Cassell's treats it as a base preparation: master it and you have the base for ice cream, trifle, floating island and a dozen creams and moulds. The vanilla itself signals a certain expense. Pods were imported, costly and sold by the piece, which is why the recipe specifies half a pod and quietly allows "essence of vanilla" as the economical substitute, a manufactured flavouring that was available in British grocers by the later part of the century. The costing note is a Cassell's habit throughout the book, aimed at the mistress of a household budgeting by the shilling: a pint of vanilla custard at 1s. to 1s. 6d. was a modest treat rather than an everyday sweet. Piling the leftover whites back on top is thrift as much as decoration, and the same gesture underlies the older dish of floating island.