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Cheese Custard (Fill a shallow dish)
Fill a shallow dish with alternate layers of bread crumbs and grated cheese, using one pint of crumbs and a small cup of cheese. Pour over it a custard made of one pint of milk, two beaten eggs, 1 tbsp. melted butter, 1/2 tsp. salt and a shake of pepper. Bake until pudding is set and a delicate brown, about one-half hour. Serve hot for luncheon or supper.
— Miss L. M. Ketcham
A plain savoury bread-and-cheese custard of the type that filled out meatless luncheons in early twentieth-century church cookbooks. It works well, but the original leaves out the oven temperature and says nothing about which cheese.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Bake at 350F; the half hour stated is about right for a shallow dish, and the custard is done when the centre is just set and no longer wobbles as a liquid.
- The hinge: do not overbakeEgg custard curdles and weeps if pushed much past 175-180F internal. Pull it while the middle still trembles slightly. A pan of hot water under the dish is insurance if your oven runs hot.
- "A small cup of cheese"Read this as about 3 to 4 oz grated, roughly 1 cup loosely packed. The recipe does not specify a variety; a dry aged cheddar is a reasonable choice for the period. Skip pre-shredded bags, which are coated with starch and set up grainy.
- Bread crumbsA pint measured by volume most likely indicates soft crumbs torn from a day-old loaf rather than dry packaged crumbs. Dry crumbs will absorb the milk and give you a dense paste rather than a custard.
- Season the milk, not just the topHalf a teaspoon of salt for a pint of milk plus cheese is modest by modern palates. Whisk the salt and pepper into the custard so it distributes, and taste the milk before pouring.
- Dish and yieldA 1- to 1.5-quart shallow baking dish or a 9-inch pie plate. Serves four as a light main course with a salad, six as a side.
- RestingGive it 10 minutes out of the oven. It firms enough to cut cleanly and the cheese stops being molten.
Savoury custards of this kind were the workhorse of the American "luncheon or supper" table, the two lighter meals of a day whose main event was midday dinner. They belong to a family that includes cheese strata, Welsh rabbit and the English cheese pudding, all built on the same principle: stale bread, a little cheese, and eggs and milk to bind them into something substantial. The Philathea Bible classes that produced this book were young women's church groups, and their cookbooks were fundraisers assembled from members' own kitchens, which is why the recipe carries a contributor's name and assumes the reader already knows how hot her own oven runs.