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Baked Bread and Cheese
Butter four slices of bread generously, cover with thick slices of cheese; add a beaten egg to a scant pint of milk, pour over, and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.
A four-slice bread pudding in the savory direction — essentially an unsweetened strata, and one of the shortest useful recipes in the book. Two things are left to the cook: the size of the dish and how hot "hot" really needs to be.
- Oven temperatureA "hot oven" in books of this period is usually reckoned at somewhere around 400-450F, though period sources vary. That is workable for twenty minutes only if the dish is shallow and the custard thin; in a deeper dish the eggs may curdle at the edges before the center sets. 375F for 30-35 minutes gives a smoother result, and the top still browns.
- A scant pintJust under 2 cups of milk to one egg is a very loose custard by modern standards — it will set softly and some liquid may remain at the bottom. Two eggs to the pint gives a custard that slices.
- The dishNothing is specified. Four slices of bread laid flat fit an 8-inch square baking dish or a small gratin dish; butter it, since nothing here prevents sticking.
- The breadPresumably written for firm, close-grained household bread, likely a day or two old. Modern soft sandwich bread disintegrates in that much milk -- use a sturdy white loaf, sourdough, or brioche, sliced about half an inch thick.
- The cheeseNo variety is specified. Cheddar, Gruyere, or a mix works; avoid pre-shredded cheese, which is coated with starch and goes grainy in custard.
- Let it soakThe single change most worth making. Pour the milk and egg over and leave it fifteen to twenty minutes before it goes in the oven, so the bread absorbs the custard instead of floating on it.
- DonenessThe center should be puffed and just set — a knife inserted off-center comes out clean, with no loose milk pooling. It will deflate as it stands, which is normal.
- YieldTwo generous portions as a supper dish with a salad, or four as a side. Season: the original mentions none, and it needs salt and pepper, with mustard or a little cayenne if you want it livelier.
Savory bread-and-cheese bakes are old and widespread — the English "cheese pudding" is a cousin of this — and they exist because bread went stale faster than anyone could waste it. A recipe like this one belongs to the economy of a household that baked its own loaves and had cheese either from its own dairy or from a nearby factory; the Catskill and Delaware valleys were dairy country in the nineteenth century, shipping butter and cheese down to New York City, so both principal ingredients were cheap and local. The compression of the instructions is itself informative: it was written for cooks who already knew what a hot oven looked like and how much custard their own baking dish would hold, and did not need to be told.