Home › Wholesome Cocoanut Desserts › Cocoanut and Marshmallow Custard
Cocoanut and Marshmallow Custard
1 package Dromedary Cocoanut (½ lb.) 20 marshmallows 1 cup English walnut meats, chopped 2 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup sugar 2 cups milk 1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract Into a greased, fire-proof dish put one-half of cocoanut, add marshmallows cut in halves, nuts and remainder of cocoanut. Mix eggs, sugar, milk and extract and pour over cocoanut mixture. Bake slowly and serve cold.
A baked custard poured over layered coconut, marshmallow and walnut — closer to a bread pudding in structure, with coconut doing the work of the bread. Two things need attention before you start: the coconut quantity, and what "bake slowly" means.
- The package size is questionable1½ lb of shredded coconut against 2 cups of milk and 2 eggs is far more coconut than the custard could ever bind, so the figure is probably a misprint or refers to a bulk rather than a household package. Whatever the explanation, work from roughly 1½ to 2 cups (about 4-5 oz) of shredded coconut, which the custard will actually hold together.
- "Bake slowly"For an egg custard this means 300-325F. Anything hotter curdles the eggs and weeps liquid. A water bath is not called for in the original but will give a smoother set.
- Sweetened or unsweetened coconutPackaged coconut of the period was often sold moist, and may well have been sweetened, though the booklet does not say. Modern sweetened flake plus ½ cup sugar plus 20 marshmallows makes a very sweet dish; unsweetened desiccated coconut is the better substitute, and it drinks up more of the custard.
- Marshmallows behave differently nowPeriod marshmallows were denser and more gelatinous. Modern extruded ones melt and float, so they tend to rise and form a browned crust rather than staying in halves through the middle. Push them well down into the coconut if you want them dispersed.
- Fire-proof dishSimply an ovenproof baking dish — glass, earthenware or enamelled cast iron. A shallow 1½-quart dish gives the best ratio of set custard to browned top.
- Testing for doneRoughly 45-60 minutes at 325F. The centre should still shiver slightly when the dish is nudged; it firms as it cools. A knife inserted an inch from the edge comes out clean.
- Almond extractUse it with restraint — a half teaspoon in this quantity of milk is assertive. Vanilla is the safer modern default.
- YieldSix modest servings. It is served cold, so allow at least three hours chilling; the coconut softens and the flavour improves overnight.
Dromedary was the brand name of the Hills Brothers Company of New York, best known for shredded coconut and packaged dates, and this recipe has the character of the small promotional booklets food manufacturers distributed free in the early twentieth century. The marshmallow is the other tell. Commercially manufactured marshmallows became cheap and widely available in America in the 1910s and 1920s, and cooks folded them into everything from salads to sweet potato casseroles; using them as an ingredient inside a baked custard, rather than as a confection eaten on their own, is very much of that moment. The older spelling "cocoanut" persisted in American print well into the 1930s.