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Cocoanut Tartlets
1 package Dromedary Cocoanut 1 cup cream or milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ¼ teaspoon salt 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs, separated 1 tablespoon butter, melted Pastry Line tartlet tins with thin crust. Put cocoanut into cream, add vanilla, salt and sugar and soak for 1 hour. Add yolks of eggs and butter and divide into prepared tins. Bake in a moderate oven. When nearly done cover tartlets with meringue made with whites of eggs and one tablespoon sugar. Sprinkle over with cocoanut and finish baking in a slow oven.
A custard tartlet built on soaked shredded coconut, from a promotional booklet for Dromedary brand products. The method is sound; the temperatures and quantities need translating.
- The soak is the pointDried shredded coconut is thirsty, and the hour in cream is what turns it from chewy shreds into a soft custard body. Skipping or shortening it gives a filling that sets around dry, stringy coconut.
- A package of Dromedary CocoanutPackage size is not given and cannot be confirmed from the recipe; commercial shredded coconut of the period was commonly sold in packages of around 4 ounces (roughly 1 1/3 cups). About 4 oz of shredded coconut is a reasonable working amount, holding back a little for sprinkling on the meringue as the recipe directs.
- Salt quantityThe salt reads as a whole number in this printing; a quarter teaspoon is the sensible amount for this volume of custard.
- Oven temperaturesA moderate oven is 350F. The slow oven for finishing the meringue is 300F, low enough to dry and lightly colour the whites without weeping or shrinking.
- Cream or milkThe recipe allows either. Whole milk works but gives a looser set; light cream gives a firmer, richer custard. Heavy cream will make the filling rich enough to feel greasy against the meringue.
- TimingNo times are given. The recipe fills the raw thin crust directly; at 350F expect roughly 18 to 22 minutes for the custard to be set at the edge and barely trembling at the centre, then about 12 to 15 minutes at 300F once the meringue goes on.
- Meringue proportionOne tablespoon of sugar to two whites is a very lean meringue by modern habit and will not hold long. Beat the whites to soft peak first, then add the sugar, and put the meringue on while the filling is still hot so the underside cooks.
- YieldEnough filling for about eight to ten 3-inch tartlets, or a single 8-inch shallow pie.
Dromedary was a brand of the Hills Brothers Company of New York, best known for dates and for shredded coconut sold in tins and later in cellophane packets, and its recipe booklets were given away to persuade households to keep the product on the shelf. Commercially processed shredded coconut became widely available to American cooks around the turn of the twentieth century, once processing and packing made it possible to sell the meat dried rather than requiring the cook to crack and grate a whole nut, and coconut custard and cream pies became common in the same period. The tartlet form here, with its meringue lid and scattering of coconut, is essentially an individual-sized version of a coconut cream pie.