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Escalloped Cheese
Mrs. Gertrude Wolf. 4 slices bread, buttered, diced 1 C cheese, cut in bits 1 pt. milk 2 eggs 1 t salt Butter baking dish. Put in alternate layers of cheese and bread. Beat egg, add milk and seasoning. Pour this over bread and cheese. Let stand ten minutes. Bake until brown.
A savory bread-and-cheese custard of the sort that filled the luncheon chapter of every church cookbook. The original assumes you know your own stove, so the two things it leaves out are the oven temperature and the baking time.
- Oven and timeBake at 350F for 40 to 50 minutes, until the center is set and the top is browned. The custard is done when a knife inserted at the middle comes out clean, or at about 160F on an instant-read thermometer; pulled too early it weeps milk under the crust.
- MeasurementsC is a cup, t is a teaspoon, pt is a pint. So: 1 cup cheese in bits, 2 cups milk, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon salt. Two cups of milk to two eggs is a loose custard by modern standards, which is what gives this dish its softness.
- The cheeseThis most likely means a plain factory cheddar. Any firm, well-aged cheddar works; skip fresh mozzarella and pre-shredded blends, which release water and turn the custard thin.
- The breadFour slices is roughly 4 to 5 ounces. Day-old bread absorbs the custard better than fresh.
- The ten-minute standNot optional. The bread has to drink the custard before it goes in the oven, or the top layer bakes into dry toast over a wet middle. Longer than ten minutes does no harm; half an hour is better.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt is right for the volume given, assuming the cheese is mild. With a sharp aged cheddar, cut it to three-quarters of a teaspoon. A grating of pepper or a pinch of dry mustard is period-appropriate and sharpens the cheese.
- Dish and yieldUse a 1- to 1.5-quart baking dish. This serves four as a luncheon dish, two or three as a supper with a salad alongside.
"Escalloped" (an older spelling of scalloped) in American cookbooks meant anything baked in layers in a dish, usually with milk or a sauce and often with crumbs or bread — escalloped oysters, escalloped potatoes, escalloped tomatoes. This one closely resembles what later got called a strata: bread, cheese, and an egg custard, assembled ahead and slid into the oven. Church and ladies'-aid cookbooks tend to favor recipes that stretch a little cheese and stale bread into a company meal. The elliptical style — no temperature, no time, just "bake until brown" — is normal for the genre; the woodstove or early gas range had no thermostat worth citing, and the compiler assumed a reader who already knew what a moderate oven felt like.