Tyler Pudding

A single-line 19th-century custard pie that assumes you already know how to line a plate with pastry and judge a custard by eye. The instructions leave out the two things that matter most: the oven and the pan.

• "Bake in a paste"Paste means pie crust. Line a pie plate with unsweetened short pastry, pour the filling in raw, and bake the two together. Nothing here is a steamed or boiled pudding despite the name.
• Oven temperatureNo temperature is given; the book was written for wood- and coal-fired ranges without thermometers. Treat it as a baked custard: 325-350F, and stop when the centre still wobbles slightly. Too hot an oven risks curdled eggs and a weeping filling.
• The sugar ratioThree cupfuls of sugar to four eggs and one cup of cream is high even by chess-pie standards, and this quantity of filling is likely more than a single 9-inch shell will hold. Expect two pies, or scale the sugar down to about 1 1/2 cups if you want something a modern palate reads as dessert rather than candy.
• Butter, washed and meltedWashing butter means kneading it under cold water to drive out buttermilk and excess salt, a step that mattered when butter came from a churn and soured fast. Use unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly so it does not scramble the eggs.
• "Cream, seasoned with lemon"Grated zest plus a little juice, at your discretion; the original leaves the amount to the cook. Zest of one lemon and a tablespoon of juice suits the quantity. Add the acid last and stir gently, or the cream will thicken before it reaches the shell.
• CreamNineteenth-century cream from the top of the pan ran heavier than today's supermarket half-and-half. Heavy cream is the closer match.
• Doneness and coolingA knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean while the middle is still soft. The filling sets fully as it cools; cut only when it is at room temperature or the slices slump.