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Cheese Tartlets
4 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 ozs.) grated cheese I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) butter I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) flour 1/2 pint (I cup) milk 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoonful salt Seasoning of pepper and paprika Pastry
A cheese custard baked in pastry — essentially a small quiche, built on a roux-thickened milk base rather than plain cream. The quantities are given in a mix of British and American measures, which is where most of the confusion lies.
- The measuresThe book equates half a pint with one cup, which is the American pint of 16 fl oz. An imperial half-pint would be 10 fl oz, so if you are working from British habits, use 8 fl oz (240 ml) to match the stated cup.
- Heaping tablespoonfulsThe weights in parentheses are the reliable figures: 2 oz (55 g) grated cheese, 1 oz (30 g) butter, 1 oz (30 g) flour. A modern level tablespoon holds rather less than the author's heaping one.
- The cheeseThe recipe does not say which cheese. A dry, sharp Cheddar or another hard grating cheese suits it best; anything young and moist will loosen the custard and weep fat. Grate it fine so it melts into the sauce off the heat.
- The base is a béchamelEqual butter and flour cooked together, then the milk beaten in, is the hinge of the dish. Cook the roux a minute before adding liquid or the tartlets taste of raw flour, and let the sauce cool to blood heat before the eggs go in, or they scramble.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no method or temperature. In modern terms, blind-bake the pastry shells hot (around 400F), then fill and bake the custard low, about 325-350F, until just set with a slight tremble at the centre -- roughly 15-20 minutes for small tartlets. A hot oven will curdle an egg-and-milk filling and puff it before it collapses.
- PastryNo quantity is given. A short crust of roughly 6 oz flour to 3 oz butter should line something like eight to twelve tartlet tins, or one 8-inch case, which is about right for this quantity of filling.
- YieldThe filling comes to roughly 1.5 cups, enough for 10-12 small tartlets or six as a light savoury course.
Small cheese tarts belong to the British savoury course — the salty dish served after the sweet at a formal Victorian and Edwardian dinner, or as a supper item in less formal houses. Cookery writers of the period leaned heavily on a thick milk-and-flour sauce as the carrier for cheese, since it held its shape better than a straight egg custard; the same base underlies cheese soufflés and ramekins in books of the era. Recipes of this kind also sit alongside the vogue, roughly from the 1900s onward, for fireproof earthenware and enamelled dishes that could travel from oven to table, a fashion sometimes said to owe as much to shrinking domestic staffs as to any change in taste.