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Escalloped Cheese
Line dish with bread sliced 1/2 inch thick, butter side next to dish; 2 cups cheese cut up; 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp. salt, pinch pepper, 1 tbsp. butter, 1/4 tsp. mustard; heap cheese in center of dish, mix other ingredients and pour over. Bake 1/2 hour in a moderately hot oven.
— Mrs. C. W. Illingworth
A cheese custard baked in a bread-lined dish — an ancestor of what we now call a strata. The whole thing hinges on not overbaking it, since a thin egg-and-milk custard set around cheese will weep and curdle if pushed too far.
- Oven temperature"Moderately hot" in a book of this vintage is usually reckoned at somewhere between 375 and 400F, though period guides vary. At the lower end the custard sets more gently; half an hour at 375F should suit a shallow dish.
- Dish size and yieldNo dish is specified. A 1-quart to 1 1/2-quart baking dish suits these quantities, and it serves three or four as a light supper dish with something sharp alongside.
- How much cheese"2 cups cheese cut up" is roughly 8 to 10 oz depending on how coarsely it is cut. A plain firm cheese is the likeliest reading — longhorn, brick, or a mild cheddar. Anything very aged or very dry will break into oil rather than melt smoothly.
- MustardThe 1/4 tsp. is most likely dry mustard powder, which was commonly used in cheese dishes to cut richness. Prepared mustard works but adds vinegar and liquid.
- The butterThe tablespoon of butter cannot be mixed cold into milk and eggs. Melt it and whisk it in, or simply dot it over the top before baking.
- Lining the dishButter the bread and lay it butter side against the dish, as written; the fat keeps the slices from gluing themselves to the sides and helps them brown at the edges. Slightly stale bread holds its shape better than fresh.
- Knowing when it is doneThe center should be just set and barely trembling. Baked until firm all the way through, the custard separates and the cheese turns rubbery. Let it stand five to ten minutes before serving so it finishes setting.
Escalloped dishes — anything layered with bread, crumbs or crackers and bound with a milk custard or white sauce — were a mainstay of North American church and community cookbooks in the early twentieth century. A dish like this stretched a modest amount of cheese with bread, milk and eggs into something that fed a family. The Philathea books were compiled by the Philathea classes, adult Bible-study groups for young women attached to Baptist and other Protestant Sunday schools; the collections functioned as fundraisers and as a record of what the women of a particular congregation actually cooked. The technique here is essentially the same one that produced the modern breakfast strata, though bread puddings savoury and sweet had been made in Britain long before this format settled into its American shape.