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Cream Filling
2 cupfuls sugar, 3 cupfuls milk, 3 heaping tablespoonfuls corn starch, yolks 5 eggs, 1 table-spoonful butter, 2 teaspoonfuls extract vanilla. Scald milk in double boiler, add corn starch dissolved in little cold milk, stir till smooth. Add sugar, cook ten minutes. Add egg yolks, cook four minutes, take off, and add vanilla.
A straightforward pastry cream, thickened with both cornstarch and yolks, meant for layer cakes, cream pies and filled buns. It makes a generous quantity by modern standards.
- YieldThree cups of milk plus yolks and starch gives roughly a quart of finished cream — enough to fill two or three layer cakes, or one deep cream pie with some left over. Halve everything for a single filling.
- Temper the yolksThe hinge of the recipe. Whisk a ladle of the hot thickened milk into the yolks first, then return the mixture to the pan, or the yolks will scramble into threads that no amount of beating will smooth out.
- Cupful and tablespoonfulA cupful here is 8 fl oz. Three heaping tablespoons of cornstarch is about 5 level tablespoons — a firm set, appropriate for a filling that has to hold between cake layers rather than be spooned.
- The butterThe recipe lists a tablespoon of butter but never says when to add it; the usual practice is to stir it in off the heat with the vanilla, which gives the best gloss.
- Cooking timesTen minutes for the starch is right: cornstarch needs sustained heat to lose its raw taste and reach full thickening power. The four minutes after the yolks go in is intended to cook the yolks through, which also deals with the enzyme in yolk that would otherwise thin the starch on standing.
- SweetnessTwo cups of sugar to three of milk is very sweet, in line with period tastes and the heavily iced cakes this was filling. One cup sets just as well and tastes less cloying under buttercream.
- Chilling and storageStrain into a shallow dish, press plastic wrap or buttered paper directly onto the surface to stop a skin forming, and chill thoroughly before use. It is an egg-and-dairy custard: refrigerate and use within three days.