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Cup Custard
6 eggs 6 T sugar. 12 t salt 1 qt. milk Nutmeg Beat eggs, then add other ingredients. Sprinkle grated nutmeg over top. Pour into 6 custard cups and set them in a pan of water in oven to bake. Bake at 4000 for 35 minutes. 6 eggs 2 C milk 6 T sugar Mrs. Ruby Treptow.
The typed ingredient list has come through the mimeograph garbled, with two conflicting milk quantities and a salt measure that reads as "12 t." A few decisions have to be made before the custard goes in the oven.
- The milk quantity is contradictoryThe page lists both 1 qt. milk and 2 C milk. A quart of milk to two eggs gives a very loose set; the proportion that behaves is closer to 2 cups milk to 2 eggs, which will fill three or four cups rather than six. If you want the full quart, add more eggs in proportion.
- "12 t salt"Almost certainly 1/2 teaspoon. Twelve teaspoons is a quarter cup and would be inedible.
- "4000" is 400FA dropped degree symbol. Even so, 400F is hot for a custard; most baked custards are set at 325-350F. At 400F in a water bath the outside curdles and weeps before the centre firms, and 35 minutes will likely overshoot.
- The water bath is the hingeSet the filled cups in a pan and pour hot water around them to come partway up the sides. The water slows and evens the heating so the egg protein is less likely to tighten and squeeze out its liquid. Without it the custard is far more likely to come out grainy and watery.
- Judging donenessThe custard is done when the edges are set and the centre still wobbles as a single mass when the cup is nudged. A knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean. Carryover heat finishes the middle as the cups cool.
- NutmegFreshly grated nutmeg is considerably more aromatic than the pre-ground tin. Sprinkle it after the cups are filled, as the recipe directs, so it sits on the surface and browns slightly.
- YieldSix cups as written, though see the note on milk. Serve chilled or barely warm; cool at room temperature before refrigerating so the tops do not sweat.
Baked cup custard is one of the plainest things in the American dessert repertoire and one of the most durable: eggs, milk, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and a slow oven. It came into American cookery through English practice, where the nutmeg-dusted baked custard was well established by the eighteenth century, and it survived because it was cheap, digestible, and made from what a household with a milk delivery already had. The page is credited to Mrs. Ruby Treptow, one contributor among many in a community cookbook of the kind that was typed up from submitted recipes -- which is the sort of process by which a half-teaspoon of salt becomes "12 t" and 400 degrees becomes "4000." The errors are part of the record.