Home › Spanish Custard › Spanish Custard
Spanish Custard
1078. To a quart of milk put a little sugar; when boiled, take it off the fire, and shake three table-spoonfuls of arrowroot into it, add half a tea-spoonful of noyau or essence of almonds to it, and about half an ounce of isinglass; set it over the fire again, stirring it one way, then pour it into a mould, which must first be wetted, and when cold turn it out, and stick it with blanched almonds; mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk.
A moulded arrowroot cream in the blancmange family, thickened on the stove and set with isinglass. The last clause of the recipe is the one to read first.
- Slake the arrowroot firstThe final instruction — "mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk" — belongs at the start. Three tablespoons shaken dry into hot milk will seize into lumps; stir it to a smooth cream with about 4 tablespoons of cold milk before it goes anywhere near the pan.
- IsinglassIsinglass is a gelatin refined from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in leaves or shreds. There is no exact modern equivalent — grades varied in strength — but roughly 2 to 4 teaspoons of powdered gelatine, or 3 to 5 leaves, should give a comparable set; soften it in cold water, then stir it into the hot custard until fully dissolved, avoiding a hard boil, which weakens the set.
- The quartA British quart is 40 fl oz, about 4 3/4 US cups or 1.1 litres. "A little sugar" is undefined; 2 to 3 tablespoons suits a lightly sweetened moulded cream, more if it is to stand alone as a dessert.
- NoyauNoyau (crème de noyaux) is a liqueur flavoured with fruit kernels, sold today under that name or as a peach or apricot kernel liqueur. Modern almond extract may well be stronger than the "essence of almonds" intended here; start with a scant quarter teaspoon and taste. Half a teaspoon of the liqueur can be used as written.
- Cooking the arrowrootArrowroot thickens almost at once and then thins again if held at a boil. Bring the milk barely to a simmer after the slurry goes in, stir until it coats the spoon, and take it off. The "stirring it one way" is habit rather than chemistry.
- The mouldRinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet lets the set cream slip out cleanly; a 1.2 litre (5 cup) mould is the right size. Chill at least four hours, or overnight, before turning out.
- Finishing and yieldBlanched almonds are pressed point-first into the turned-out cream, either in rows or as a spiked crown. Serves six to eight; stewed or preserved fruit makes a suitable accompaniment.
"Spanish" attached itself to a number of nineteenth-century moulded creams — Spanish cream, Spanish flummery — without much geographical justification, and the label often accompanied almonds, a liqueur, or a dish presented as a shade more elegant than plain blancmange. What distinguishes this one is its double thickening: arrowroot for body and isinglass for the clean edge that lets it stand up out of the mould. Arrowroot, imported from the West Indies, was prized in this period as a light, easily digested starch and appears constantly in invalid cookery as well as in dessert work. Isinglass was a standard setting agent before commercially refined leaf and powdered gelatine displaced it later in the century. Blanched almonds stuck into the surface are a long-established decorative device in English moulded dishes, and they echo the almond flavouring inside.