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Rum Filling
Whites of 3 eggs. 6 yolks. 1/2 cup chopped pecans. 1 cup sugar. 1/2 cup butter. 1 cup sherry and rum mixed.
Cook over steam until thick and add pecans.
A rich boiled custard filling for layer cake, thickened by egg alone. The whole thing hinges on holding the heat low enough that the eggs never scramble.
- Cook over steam means a double boilerSet a heatproof bowl over an inch of barely simmering water, not touching it. Cook until the mixture coats a spoon, somewhere around 170-180F; pushed much hotter, the yolks will curdle and whisking will not bring them back.
- Whisk constantly, and start coldCombine eggs, sugar, butter and liquor off the heat before it goes over the water. Butter added in pieces as the custard warms emulsifies more smoothly than a single lump.
- The alcohol proportion is highOne cup of sherry and rum against six yolks and three whites is a great deal of thin liquid, and it will slow thickening considerably. Expect it to take well over five minutes.
- "Sherry and rum mixed" is unspecifiedNo ratio is given. Half and half is a reasonable reading; more sherry gives a softer, sweeter filling, more rum a sharper one. Dark rum arguably suits the pecans better than white.
- Whites and yolks are used togetherThree whites plus six yolks go in together; this is not a meringue. The odd count means that after taking six yolks you will have three whites left over for something else.
- Toast the pecansAdd them only after the custard is off the heat, as directed. Ten minutes in a 350F oven first sharpens the flavor and keeps them from going soft in the wet filling.
- Yield and useRoughly two and a half cups, enough to fill and stack a three-layer 8- or 9-inch cake. Chill it thoroughly before spreading; warm, it will run off the layers.
- KeepingAn egg custard with only this much sugar is perishable. Refrigerate and use within two days; the alcohol is not a preservative at this dilution.
The page sits under "Vegetables," which may be a compositor's error rather than a statement about pecans, though the page itself does not settle the question. The filling itself belongs to a long line of wine- and spirit-flavored boiled custards used between cake layers, close cousins to sherry trifle cream and to the French crème anglaise stiffened with extra egg. Pecans place it in an American, and particularly Southern, register. What makes the date worth noting is Prohibition: national enforcement began in January 1920, and recipes calling openly for a cup of spirits were on their way out of print, though household stocks and cooking wine kept them alive in kitchens for years afterward.