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Chocolate or Orange Cream
1026. Mix together two yolks of eggs, a pint of milk, sugar to the taste, a bit of butter twice the size of a walnut, a spoonful of dried and sifted flour, and sliced chocolate, which should be put to the milk cold; put all in a stewpan, and stir gently till it just boils. If you wish it flavoured with orange or lemon, chop some peel very fine, and put it in as you take it off the fire, and it retains a fresh flavour.
This is a flour-thickened stirred custard — what a modern kitchen would call a light pastry cream or crème pâtissière — set either with chocolate or with fresh citrus peel. The whole thing hangs on the last few seconds over the heat.
- "Till it just boils"With two yolks and only a spoonful of flour, the margin between thickened and scrambled is narrow. Take it to the first lazy bubble, stirring constantly with a spatula across the whole base of the pan, then pull it off; it will continue to thicken as it cools.
- The pintA British pint in this book is 20 fl oz, roughly 570 ml, not the American 16 oz. Using a US pint gives a noticeably thicker cream, which is not a fault if that is what you want.
- Butter "twice the size of a walnut"A walnut of butter is reckoned variously in period sources, somewhere between half an ounce and an ounce, so this is roughly 1 to 2 oz, say 2 to 4 tablespoons. The recipe mixes it in with everything else at the start; stirring it in at the end, off the heat, will give a glossier finish.
- "A spoonful of flour"Genuinely ambiguous — period spoonfuls run from a teaspoon to a generous tablespoon. Around a level tablespoon (about 10 g) suits 570 ml of milk for a pouring cream; double it for something that will hold its shape in a glass.
- Sliced chocolateMid-nineteenth-century chocolate came as hard cakes or sticks meant mainly for drinking, coarser than a modern bar and variable in sweetness, some sweetened and spiced, some not. Two to three ounces of chopped dark chocolate, around 60-70 per cent, is in the right range; taste before adding much sugar, since modern chocolate already carries some.
- Put it in coldAdding the chocolate to cold milk lets it soften and disperse evenly as the milk warms; dropped into hot milk it is more likely to clump before it dissolves.
- StewpanA stewpan here is simply a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Thin aluminium will scorch the milk sugars before the flour has cooked out.
- The peel off the fireFor the orange or lemon version, the point of adding finely chopped zest away from the heat is that the volatile oils survive. Use zest only, no white pith, and let it steep as the cream cools; strain it out if you want a smooth texture.
- Yield and servingEnough for four to six small glasses or custard cups. Cover the surface directly with film while cooling to prevent a skin, and serve cold with a plain biscuit or sponge finger.