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Cream Filling (Cup sugar tablespoons corn)
1/2 cup sugar 2 tablespoons corn starch 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 1 cup scalded milk 1 teaspoon butter 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Mix together sugar, corn starch, salt and beaten eggs; pour on gradually scalded milk; add butter; cook in double boiler for at least ten minutes or until thick and smooth, stirring constantly; add flavoring; cool and spread between layers of cake.
A plain pastry cream, thickened with cornstarch and eggs over water. The method is sound; only a few details need translating.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk until it steams and small bubbles form at the edge, about 180F, not to a rolling boil. Adding it gradually to the egg-sugar mixture while whisking is what keeps the eggs from scrambling.
- Double boilerThe water in the lower pan should simmer, not boil hard, and should not touch the upper pan. This is the safeguard against curdling, and it is why the recipe asks for ten minutes rather than two.
- Cook it long enoughTen minutes over water is not padding. Prolonged cooking is what cooks out the raw, chalky taste of the starch, and sustained heat also helps inactivate the amylase in egg yolk that can thin a starch-thickened cream. Undercooked, the filling is more likely to slacken and weep in the cake.
- Stirring constantlyUse a whisk rather than a spoon and get into the corners of the pan. The mixture thickens unevenly and will set into lumps wherever it sits still.
- The butterOne teaspoon is a modest amount by modern standards, added for gloss rather than richness. A tablespoon whisked in off the heat gives a smoother, less starchy mouthfeel.
- CoolingPress plastic wrap or buttered paper directly on the surface so no skin forms, and chill thoroughly. Warm filling will soak into the crumb and slide out from between the layers.
- YieldRoughly a cup and a half, enough to fill a single two-layer eight- or nine-inch cake.
- KeepingThis is a fresh egg-and-milk custard. Refrigerate it and use within two days; a filled cake should also be kept cold.
Cornstarch-thickened cream filling of this kind became a household staple once cheap boxed corn starch was widely sold in America in the second half of the nineteenth century; before that, cooks leaned on flour, arrowroot or simply more eggs. It is a frugal cousin of French crème pâtissière, using a little starch to do the work of extra yolks, and it turns up in American cookbooks of the period as a filling for layer cake, cream pie, cream puffs and filled doughnuts. Note also the assumption that a double boiler stands ready on the stove, useful equipment for kitchens working over uneven coal and gas heat.