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Cream Curd Puffs
Cheesecakes. Talmouses a la creme.
The same in form as the last, but sweet. Inclose a spoonful of the curd paste in a pastry bottom; egg over and dredge with sugar. 6 ounces of cream curd. 1/2 pint of milk. 1 ounce of sugar. 2 ounces of butter. 4 ounces of flour. 5 eggs. Salt. 2 teaspoonfuls of flavoring extract. Pie paste for the bottoms.
Make a cooked paste as for cream puffs--the butter and sugar boiled in the milk--flour stirred in, then the curd; the eggs beaten in one at a time, and flavoring added last.
These puffs can be partially filled with any of the creams or conserves, for making which, the directions have already been given.
This is choux paste enriched with fresh curd cheese, baked in a small round of pie pastry rather than free-form on a sheet. The curd carries extra moisture, so the egg count is a ceiling rather than a fixed quantity.
- Hold back the last eggFour ounces of flour would normally take three to four eggs; the fifth here may be allowing for a fairly dry, pressed curd. Beat in four, judge the paste — it should fall from the spoon in a thick, glossy ribbon and hold a soft peak — and add the fifth only if it is still stiff. An over-slack paste will spread and refuse to puff.
- Cream curdA fresh, drained, unripened curd cheese: farmer's cheese, quark, or dry-curd cottage cheese are the closest things now sold. Whole-milk ricotta works if you drain it in a cloth for several hours first. Modern cream cheese is a poor stand-in; the higher fat and the stabilisers in most brands are likely to slacken the paste.
- MeasuresHalf a pint of milk is 1 cup. Four ounces of flour is a scant cup, weighed; measuring by volume here will make the paste too dry. Six ounces of curd is about ¾ cup packed. The salt is unquantified — ¼ teaspoon suits this quantity.
- Order of operationsBoil the milk, butter and sugar together, beat in all the flour at once and dry the paste over the heat for a minute or two, then take it off before working in the curd. Eggs go in only once the paste has cooled to warm, one at a time and fully absorbed each time.
- OvenThe book gives none. Bake at 425F for the first 12 to 15 minutes to raise the puff, then drop to 350F for another 15 to 20 to dry the interior. Do not open the door during the first stage.
- Pastry bottoms and the sugar dredgeCut rounds of pie paste a little wider than the spoonful of filling and set them on the sheet; the puff rises out of the pastry as it bakes. Egg wash plus sugar will colour fast at 425F — use a light dredge, or add the sugar after the temperature drops.
- Filling afterwards'Partially filled' most likely means splitting or piercing the cooled puffs and piping in pastry cream or conserve, though it may simply mean filling them only part-way. Fill them the same day they are served; the curd paste softens quickly once damp.
- YieldAbout 18 to 24 puffs of two or three bites each, depending on how generous the spoonful is.
Talmouse is an old French pastry name for a small filled case, usually pinched into a triangle or a three-cornered hat, and in classical French practice the standard version was savoury: fresh cheese, sometimes bound with choux paste, in a pastry base. This entry is the sweet cousin, the same construction with sugar and flavouring, which is why the author files it under cheesecakes and simply says "the same in form as the last." Nineteenth-century American pastry books lean heavily on French terminology because the professional trade did — a hotel or confectionery kitchen of the period was often staffed by French cooks. The recipe also reflects a time when fresh curd was an everyday item, drained from soured milk in the kitchen itself rather than bought in a tub.