Baked Cheese Pudding

A rich cheese custard in a puff-paste shell, written for cooks who already knew what to do. The proportions are workable but the instructions leave out the oven entirely.

• The hinge: the cheese-to-liquid ratioOne pound of grated cheese to a gill of cream and four or five eggs is a very dry, dense filling by modern standards — closer to a cheese tart than a pudding. Increasing the cream to about a cup gives a custard that sets smooth rather than grainy and oily.
• A gill4 fluid ounces, half a cup, in American measure. (The British imperial gill is 5 fluid ounces, so the two are not identical.)
• "Bake"No temperature or time is given. A workable modern reconstruction: blind-bake the puff paste shell at 400F, then fill and bake at 325-350F until the centre is just set and barely trembles, roughly 30-40 minutes. Baked too hot, the eggs are apt to curdle and the cheese to break into fat.
• The cheeseUnspecified. A firm cheese such as Cheddar, Cheshire or Gruyere suits the method. Avoid pre-shredded cheese, which is coated in starch and turns pasty in custard.
• Butter "melted to the substance of oil"Fully melted and clear, not merely softened, so it emulsifies into the eggs instead of streaking. Let it cool slightly first or it will scramble them.
• BreadcrumbsTwo tablespoons of dry sifted crumbs, not fresh; they are there to bind and absorb rendered fat, not to bulk out the filling.
• Puff pasteA sheet of frozen all-butter puff pastry is a fair substitute. Line the dish, dock the base, and blind-bake with weights — a wet cheese filling on raw puff paste gives a sodden bottom.
• YieldA pound of cheese fills a 9-inch shell generously and serves six to eight as a savoury course or light supper dish, with something sharp alongside.