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Coffee Custard
1/4 cup sugar. 1/8 teaspoon salt. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla. 2 cups milk. 2 tablespoons ground coffee 3 eggs Scald milk with coffee, and strain. Beat eggs slightly add sugar, salt, vanilla, and milk. individual moulds, set in pan of hot water, and bake until firm.
The text as printed is missing part of its ingredient list — only the coffee and eggs survive, though the method calls for milk, sugar, salt and vanilla. Standard proportions for a baked custard in this book fill the gaps.
- Missing quantitiesThree eggs to two cups (one pint) of milk, with about a quarter cup of sugar and a pinch of salt, are typical baked-custard proportions for a recipe of this period. The original page gives no figures for these, so treat any number as a reconstruction rather than the author's own.
- Ground coffee, not brewedTwo tablespoons of dry ground coffee is steeped in the hot milk and strained out, which gives a mild infusion. Brewed coffee substituted volume-for-volume would thin the custard and set it poorly; if you want a stronger flavour, add more grounds, not more liquid.
- Scald means about 180FBring the milk to the point where bubbles form at the edge and steam rises, not to a boil. Let the coffee steep off the heat for five to ten minutes, then strain through a fine sieve or cloth.
- Temper the eggs"Add … milk" glosses over the one step that decides the texture: pour the hot milk into the beaten eggs in a thin stream while stirring, or the eggs will curdle into threads that no amount of baking will smooth out. Strain the finished mixture again before filling the moulds.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A moderate oven of about 325F suits custard: it sets at roughly 175-180F internally and turns watery and pitted if pushed much above that, so a hotter oven is a false economy.
- The water bathThe pan of hot water should come halfway up the moulds. Set it on the oven rack first and add the water there rather than carrying a full pan across the kitchen.
- Judging "until firm"Individual moulds take roughly 30 to 40 minutes. The custard is done when the edges are set and the centre still trembles as a single mass; a knife slipped in an inch from the rim should come out clean.
- Yield and servingDepending on the reconstructed quantities, roughly five or six half-cup moulds. The original gives no chilling or serving directions.
Baked custard is the workhorse of the American cookbook's dessert chapter, and the basic formula — eggs, milk, sugar, flavouring, baked in a water bath — was commonly varied by infusion: caramel, chocolate, almond, coffee. Scalding milk with dry coffee grounds rather than adding brewed coffee avoids the extra liquid that weakens the egg's setting power. The recipe as it appears here is a good example of the compressed telegraphic style these books used to save page space, with the ingredient list evidently truncated in printing.