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Cream Filling for Cake
Seven-eighth cup of sugar, one-half cup of flour, pinch of salt, two eggs, two cups of scalded milk. Mix dry ingredients, add eggs slightly beaten, and pour on gradually the scalded milk. Cook fifteen minutes in double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened. Cool and flavor.
— Mrs. Frank N. Rogers
This is a plain pastry cream, thickened with flour rather than cornstarch, and it behaves exactly as a modern one does. A few of the instructions assume equipment and habits that have shifted.
- Seven-eighths of a cupThat is 1 cup less 2 tablespoons, roughly 175 g of granulated sugar.
- Flour, not cornstarchHalf a cup of flour to two cups of milk gives a stiff, sliceable filling that holds between cake layers without running. It needs the full cooking time to lose the raw-flour taste; cornstarch fillings, which set faster, are not a direct substitute at this ratio.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk until it steams and shows bubbles at the rim, about 180F, not to a rolling boil. Adding it hot and gradually to the sugar-flour-egg paste keeps the eggs from setting into threads.
- Fifteen minutes is not too longOver a double boiler the mixture stays below a boil, so the eggs are much less likely to curdle and the timing is honest. Flour-thickened creams need several minutes at full thickness to cook out; a direct-heat shortcut risks scorching and lumps.
- Stirring constantlyA whisk works better than a spoon. Get into the corners of the pan, where the mixture sets first.
- Cool and flavorVanilla is the default here; add a teaspoon or two off the heat, since heat drives off the flavor. Lemon zest, almond extract, or a spoonful of sherry all appear in books of this vintage.
- Preventing a skinPress plastic wrap or buttered paper directly onto the surface as it cools. Chill thoroughly before spreading, or it will slump out of the cake.
- YieldAbout two and a half cups, enough to fill a two- or three-layer 8- or 9-inch cake generously. Keep refrigerated and use within two days.
Cream fillings like this one are the domestic descendant of French crème pâtissière, which had become thoroughly ordinary by the time community cookbooks like this were being compiled. The flour rather than cornstarch marks it as the older style; cornstarch, widely sold from the mid-1800s, gradually displaced flour in such fillings over the following decades. A filling of this kind was the foundation of the layer cake that gets called Boston cream pie, and of the countless "cream cakes" and "custard pies" that fill the cake chapters of church and village collections. That it is credited to Mrs. Frank N. Rogers rather than presented anonymously is the whole point of a book like this: the recipes are a roster of the households that contributed them, published by name.