Filling (Cups pitted cherries cup sugar)

A cherry custard filling of the kind poured into a partly baked shell and set in the oven, rather than cooked on the stove. The instructions stop before the baking, so treat it as a component.

• It is not a stovetop fillingWith whole eggs, flour and cornstarch in 1 1/2 cups of milk, this reads as a mixture to be baked rather than cooked over heat. The recipe itself stops before the oven and gives no temperature or time, so any baking schedule is a modern guess; treat it as a custard filling and bake until the centre is only just set.
• Sift, then add eggs unbeatenThe order matters. Combining sugar, flour and cornstarch first and rubbing the unbeaten eggs into that dry mixture keeps the starch from lumping once the milk goes in. Beating the eggs first makes it harder to get a smooth paste.
• CherriesTwo cups of pitted cherries is roughly 1 lb of whole fruit before pitting. The recipe does not say which kind; sour cherries are the usual choice in pies of this sort, and with sweet cherries you may want less sugar and a little lemon juice.
• Canned or frozen fruitDrain thoroughly and pat dry. Excess syrup or thawing liquid will thin the custard past the point where the starch can set it, and the filling weeps.
• Add the fruit last, and gentlyStirring cherries in at the end keeps the batter pale and the fruit whole. Fold rather than beat once they are in.
• YieldThe mixture comes to roughly four cups, about enough for one large single-crust shell; the recipe itself gives no pan size or serving count.
• DonenessJudge by the centre, not the edge. A custard baked until the middle is firm will have curdled at the rim; pull it when a two-inch circle at the centre still moves as a mass, and let it finish setting as it cools.