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Cream Filling (Cup sugar cup flour teaspoon)
7/8 cup sugar 1/3 cup flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 2 cups scalded milk 1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract Mix dry ingredients, add eggs slightly beaten, and pour on gradually scalded milk. Cook fifteen minutes in double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened, afterwards occasionally. Cool and flavor.
A standard pastry cream, thickened with flour rather than cornstarch, meant for filling layer cakes and cream pies. The proportions are sound; only the method needs a little translation.
- The hinge: temper, then cook out the flourPouring the scalded milk onto the egg-and-flour paste gradually is what keeps the eggs from scrambling. The long cooking that follows is not caution but necessity — flour-thickened creams taste pasty until the starch has fully gelatinised.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk to about 180F, when it steams and a ring of small bubbles forms at the edge of the pan. It need not boil.
- Fifteen minutes is right hereUnlike most old timings, this one stands. A double boiler runs below the boil, so the custard needs the full quarter hour to thicken and lose its raw-flour flavour. Stir constantly until it sets, then every minute or two.
- Direct heat if you preferThe same mixture can be cooked in a heavy saucepan over medium heat in five to six minutes, whisking without pause. It is faster but less forgiving; the double boiler is the safer route to a smooth result.
- Flavour off the heatVanilla and lemon extract are largely alcohol and volatile oil, both of which cook away. Adding them after cooling, as directed, keeps the flavour.
- Preventing a skinPress plastic wrap or buttered paper directly onto the surface while it cools. Chill thoroughly before spreading, or it will run out of the cake.
- YieldAbout two and a half cups — enough to fill a two- or three-layer 9-inch cake, or one deep pie shell. It keeps three days refrigerated and does not freeze well.
- 7/8 cup sugarThree-quarters of a cup plus two tablespoons. Reducing it to 3/4 cup gives a less sweet filling without affecting the set.
Flour-thickened egg custards of this kind are close kin to the French crème pâtissière, and fillings of this sort were common in American layer cakes around the turn of the twentieth century — cheap, and made from staples any household kept. Cookery manuals of this period often gave quantities in exact fractional cups. Cornstarch would later displace flour in many versions, giving a glossier and slightly lighter cream.