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Cake Filling
1 C milk. 1 T sugar. 1 heaping T cornstarch 12 t anilla 1 egg Scald milk. Beat egg. Mix sugar and cornstarch together and add to egg. Add vanilla. Mix well and then add slowly to the scalded milk. Cook until thick. Cool and spread between layers.
Mrs. Elmer Huffman.
A plain cornstarch pastry cream, printed with two of its quantities lost in the typesetting. The method is sound; the amounts have to be reconstructed.
- Missing amountsThe list gives no quantity for milk or sugar, both of which the instructions call for. There is no way to recover them from the text; a standard ratio for a single layer-cake filling is about 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup sugar to 1 heaping tablespoon cornstarch and 1 egg.
- "12 t anilla"This is a mangled 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Add it at the end rather than with the egg, since scalding drives off some of the aroma.
- AbbreviationsT is tablespoon, t is teaspoon. A heaping tablespoon is not a fixed measure; it is somewhat more than a level tablespoon, and cooks reckoned it differently.
- ScaldingBring the milk to about 180F, when steam rises and bubbles ring the edge. It need not boil at this stage.
- The hinge: cook it past thickeningCornstarch begins to gelatinise well below boiling and finishes thickening only as the mixture approaches the boil, and an egg-thickened starch mixture must reach a full bubble for about a minute. Egg yolk contains an enzyme that breaks starch down; if the filling is pulled off as soon as it looks thick, it can loosen on standing.
- TemperingAdding the cold egg-sugar-starch mixture slowly to the hot milk, as directed, is what prevents curdling. Whisk constantly and keep the heat moderate.
- CoolingPress plastic wrap or buttered paper directly on the surface so no skin forms, and chill until cold and set. Spreading it warm will soak the cake layers.
- YieldOn the reconstructed quantities above, about a cup, enough for the single filling layer of an 8- or 9-inch cake. Best used within a couple of days refrigerated; it does not freeze well.
Fillings of this kind stand between a custard and a cornstarch blancmange, and they multiplied in American community cookbooks once boxed cornstarch became a cheap pantry staple in the later nineteenth century. Starch let a cook stretch one egg into a full cup of filling that held its shape between layers without butter or cream, which mattered in a church-supper book where cakes were carried from home and cut hours later. The Libertyville Presbyterian collection credits each contributor by her husband's name; why the quantities are missing from Mrs. Huffman's filling is not recoverable, and a printing or transcription loss is as likely an explanation as any.