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Macaroni Cake with Fruit Jelly
3/4 pound of macaroni. 1 quart of milk. 3 ounces of sugar. 2 ounces of butter. 3 eggs. Salt, vanilla or nutmeg.
Keep out a cup of milk to beat up with the eggs. Make same as macaroni pudding preceding. Bake in a pan, to be about an inch deep when done. Cut in strips, squares, or diamonds and serve with red fruit jelly.
A baked macaroni custard, firm enough to cut into portions — closer to a sliceable pudding than anything a modern cook would call cake. The instruction that matters is the one it leaves out: the macaroni is cooked soft in the milk itself, so the starch it sheds is what binds the slab.
- The missing method"Make same as macaroni pudding preceding" refers to a recipe not reproduced here. The reserved cup of milk suggests the rest is used to cook the macaroni: simmer it gently in the milk until tender and the milk has thickened, stir in sugar and butter, let it cool below scalding, then beat in the eggs with the reserved cup of milk. Adding eggs to boiling milk will scramble them.
- Weights to volume3 oz sugar is about 6 to 7 tablespoons; 2 oz butter is 4 tablespoons. Three-quarters of a pound of dry macaroni to a quart of milk is a stiff ratio, which is the point — this has to hold a cut edge.
- The macaroniNineteenth-century macaroni generally meant long tubes, broken into short lengths before cooking. Modern elbows work; avoid anything ridged or shaped, which traps custard unevenly and makes ragged slices.
- OvenThe original specifies no heat. A moderate oven, around 350F, works. The custard is set when the centre no longer wobbles as a liquid and reads about 175F — roughly 40 to 50 minutes for a one-inch depth, though pan size governs this more than the clock.
- Pan depth"About an inch deep when done" is the specification, not the pan. Spread the mixture roughly an inch deep in a buttered baking dish; it rises very little. A 9x13 pan suits this quantity.
- Seasoning amountsSalt and flavouring are left to the cook's judgement. About a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract, or a good grating of nutmeg, suits a quart of milk.
- Cool before cuttingWarm custard tears. Chill the slab thoroughly, then cut with a thin knife wiped between cuts to get clean strips, squares or diamonds.
- YieldAbout twelve to sixteen portions, depending on how the slab is cut. The text asks only for "red fruit jelly"; red currant or raspberry would answer to that.
Sweet macaroni puddings ran through English and American cookery for most of the nineteenth century, when pasta could be treated as a starch like rice or sago — baked with milk, eggs, sugar and nutmeg, it sat on the same page as rice pudding and tapioca. A cheap milk-and-starch pudding baked in a flat pan, chilled, cut into geometric portions and dressed with a spoonful of bright jelly could be sent out as a plated dessert at almost no cost. The instruction to cut in "strips, squares, or diamonds" reads most plausibly as a portioning note rather than a decorative flourish — it tells the cook how to get a uniform count out of the pan.