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Lemon Cheese Cakes
Ingredients.
Three ounces of Castor Sugar.
The Yolks of three Eggs; and The Whites of three (whipped).
One ounce of Ratafia crumbs.
Two tablespoonfuls of Lemon-juice.
The grated Rind of one Lemon.
Mix all these ingredients well together, adding. the whites of eggs, well whipped, the last; line T some tartlet tins with pastry rolled out thin and cut out with a cutter, fill in with the lemon mixture and bake about fifteen or twenty minutes.
A Victorian lemon curd tartlet lightened with whipped whites. The original assumes you know your oven and can buy ratafias, so both need translating.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Pastry-lined tartlets of this kind want a moderately hot oven, about 375F, so the shells colour while the filling sets. Fifteen to twenty minutes is right at that heat; the centres should be just firm with a faint wobble.
- Ratafia crumbsRatafias were small, hard almond macaroons, crushed to a coarse meal. Crushed amaretti or plain almond macaroons give much the same effect; an ounce is roughly a quarter cup of crumbs. They would also help absorb the juice and keep the filling from weeping, though the recipe does not say so.
- Castor sugarSuperfine (caster) sugar. Ordinary granulated works, but it dissolves less readily in a cold mixture, so beat it into the yolks until no grain is felt.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe whipped whites go in last and must be folded through in two or three additions. Beaten in, they liquefy and the tartlets bake flat and dense rather than rising into a soufflé-like curd.
- PastryA short or sweet shortcrust rolled thin. No blind baking is called for and none is needed at this heat with a shallow tin, but chill the lined tins before filling to keep the sides from slumping.
- LemonTwo tablespoons of juice is roughly one lemon, and the recipe asks for the grated rind of one; a single lemon zested before juicing will usually serve. Grating the zest into the sugar first helps release the oils.
- YieldPerhaps a dozen small tartlets, depending on the size of your tins; the recipe gives no number. Fill them no more than three-quarters full, as the whites lift the mixture in the oven and it sinks again on cooling.
- ServingBest barely warm or at room temperature the day they are made. Refrigeration firms the curd and softens the pastry.
In British usage a "lemon cheese" is what is now generally called lemon curd, and "cheesecake" long meant a small pastry case filled with a rich curd rather than a large baked cream-cheese dessert; recipes of this sort appear under the same name from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onward, the earliest versions genuinely containing curds. The ratafia crumbs are a period marker: ratafia biscuits, generally said to take their name from the almond-flavoured cordial, were a familiar item in Victorian kitchens and turn up as a thickener and flavouring in trifles, puddings and tart fillings.