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Nut Filling
1/2 cup sugar. ½ cup sweet cream 1 egg (white) ¼ cup chopped walnuts Mix all well and boil slowly, stirring all the time. Any kind of nuts preferred may be used with above recipe. Egg may be omitted. 1214
A three-line filling of the kind contributed by home cooks and printed almost as received, which means a few things go unsaid. Read the notes on sugar and on the egg white before you start.
- No sugar is listedOther cream-and-nut fillings of the period are usually cooked with sugar, and without it this is a bland thickened cream. Whether the omission is intentional or a printing slip cannot be determined from the page; if you want a sweet filling you will have to add sugar to taste.
- Sweet cream"Sweet" here means fresh and unsoured, not sweetened. Heavy or whipping cream will thicken fastest; lighter cream or half-and-half will need longer reduction.
- The egg whiteStirred into cream over heat, a raw white tends to set into fine threads rather than dissolving. The recipe itself allows leaving it out. If you do use it, keep it in the pan and cook it through with the cream as written rather than adding it raw at the end.
- "Boil slowly"A bare simmer in a heavy saucepan, stirred constantly, for roughly 8 to 12 minutes until the cream has reduced and coats the spoon thickly. Cream scorches on the bottom quickly and will taste of it throughout, so keep the heat low and the spoon moving.
- NutsChop fine. Toasting them dry first is optional and not in the original, but it helps the nuts keep their bite between cake layers.
- Cool before spreadingIt thickens further as it drops to room temperature. Spread it warm and it will run out of the layers.
- YieldRoughly ½ cup once the cream has reduced, enough for a thin layer between two small cake layers.
- The stray numberThe "1214" at the end is some form of reference number carried over from the book, not an ingredient or a quantity.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses flour, and it was compiled largely from recipes contributed by Canadian users of the flour — which is why entries like this one are terse, unpunctuated in places, and vague about quantities the contributor took for granted. Boiled cream fillings work on a simple principle: you reduce cream on the stove until it thickens, add nuts or coconut or dried fruit, and spread it between layers. The note that "any kind of nuts preferred may be used" reflects a kitchen working from whatever was in the pantry rather than from a shopping list.