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To Make Cheesecakes
808. Strain the whey from the curd of two quarts of milk; when rather dry, crumble it through a coarse sieve, and mix with six ounces of fresh butter, one ounce of pounded blanched almonds, a little orange-flower water, half a glass of raisin wine, a grated biscuit, four ounces of currants, some nutmeg and cinnamon in fine powder, and beat all the above with three eggs and half a pint of cream till quite light; then line the patty-pans with puff paste, and fill them three parts full. a Another. Turn a curd with three quarts of milk, tie it in strainer, and when dry rub it through a colander with two ounces of butter and a tea-cup of cream; add five ounces of currants, five eggs, the rind of a lemon grated, four spoonsful of brandy, and good moist sugar. A piece of rennet one inch square, soaked in water twelve hours, will be enough; put it warm to the milk, and put that by the fire; if you buy the liquid rennet use one tea-spoonful to each quart. Another.-Mix the curd of three quarts of milk, a pound of currants, twelve ounces of Lisbon sugar, a quarter of an ounce each of cinnamon and nutmeg, the peel of one lemon chopped so fine that it becomes a paste, the yolks of eight and whites of six eggs, a pint of thin scalded cream, and a glass of brandy; put a light puff-paste in the pattypans, and three parts fill them.
Three versions of the same sweet curd tart, none of which tells you how to bake it. All three are curd tarts in the old English sense: fresh rennet curd, dried, enriched with butter, eggs, cream and dried fruit, baked in small pastry cases.
- The hinge: drain the curd hardEverything depends on getting the curd genuinely dry before you enrich it. Curd still holding whey gives a filling that weeps and never sets, which is why the recipe says "when rather dry" and "tie it in strainer". Hang or press it until it is crumbly, not wet, then push it through a sieve so there are no rubbery lumps.
- Making the curdWarm the milk to about 100F, stir in the rennet, and leave it undisturbed off the heat until firmly set, then cut and drain. The direction to soak a one-inch square of animal rennet for twelve hours belongs to the days of dried calf stomach; modern liquid rennet is standardised, and the recipe's own note of one teaspoon per quart is far stronger than current bottles need. Follow the dose on the bottle. Full-fat milk works; ultra-pasteurised milk will not set properly.
- OvenNo temperature or time is given. For a modern oven, bake at around 400F until the pastry is set and coloured and the filling is just firm at the centre, roughly 20-25 minutes for small tartlets. Filling the cases only three parts full is deliberate; the egg and cream rise.
- Patty-pansShallow tartlet or muffin tins, lined with puff pastry. No yield is given; the three fillings differ in bulk, so expect anything from about a dozen and a half to well over two dozen small tarts depending on the version and the size of tin, or one large open tart if you prefer.
- A glass, a tea-cup, a spoonfulA wine glass of this period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half a glass of raisin wine is about 1 fl oz, roughly two tablespoons; a tea-cup is somewhere around 4-6 fl oz. "Four spoonsful of brandy" most likely means tablespoons. These are seasoning quantities and small variations do no harm.
- SugarsLisbon sugar and "good moist sugar" are unrefined light brown sugars; use light muscovado or soft light brown. The second version gives no quantity at all, so work to taste against the twelve ounces specified in the third, which is generously sweet for three quarts of milk's worth of curd.
- A grated biscuitA plain hard biscuit, grated to crumbs, used as a binder. About an ounce of dry unsweetened crumbs or crushed plain digestive-type biscuit does the same job.
- Raisin wine and orange-flower waterRaisin wine was a homemade sweet wine; a sweet sherry or Madeira stands in without complaint. Orange-flower water is still sold in Middle Eastern groceries and is potent -- half a teaspoon is a little, a tablespoon is a lot.
- CurrantsCurrants here are dried Zante grapes, not fresh blackcurrants. A pound of them in the third version, with a pint of cream and eight yolks, makes a very rich fruited filling closer to a fruit tart than to a plain curd one.
Cheesecake in British cookery long meant this: a small tart filled with fresh rennet curd rather than the soft-cheese-and-crumb-base dessert the name now conjures. The dish is a by-product of home dairying, a way of using the curd left after milk was set with rennet, and it survives in the Yorkshire curd tart and in the Richmond Maids of Honour, both of which follow the same pattern of curd, butter, eggs, sugar, spice and often currants in a light pastry case. That three variants sit side by side under one number is typical of nineteenth-century compilers, who gathered versions from various sources and let readers choose. The differences are telling: one leans on almonds, orange-flower water and raisin wine in an older, more perfumed manner, while the others go heavier on currants, lemon peel and brandy. The careful note on rennet -- how big a piece, how long to soak, how much of the bottled liquid to use per quart -- suggests a moment when prepared rennet could be bought ready-made rather than a dried calf's stomach kept on a shelf.