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French Custard
Mix into two tablespoonfuls of cold milk one dessertspoonful of potato-flour; when smooth, add gradually half a pint of boiling milk sweetened with one ounce of caster-sugar, and stir over the fire until thick; add two well-beaten eggs, flour to taste, and keep on the fire for four or five minutes. Empty the custard into a dish to cool, and stir now and then to prevent a skin from forming.
Custard in Cups or Glasses Beat together half a teacupful of sugar, the yolks of eight eggs and whites of two, and add slowly one breakfast cupful of milk, stirring constantly. Put into a saucepan three breakfast cupfuls more of milk, place on the fire until it comes to a boil, and pour it over the beaten mixture; set the basin in a pan of hot water, and stir over the fire for about five minutes, by which time it should be thick; then work in half a teaspoonful of salt and set it away to cool; add one teaspoonful of lemon or vanilla flavoring, or half the quantity of almond. Then pour the custard into custard-cups or glasses.
Two custards printed as one entry: a thin starch-bound pouring custard, then a richer egg custard set in cups. Both live or die on heat control -- once egg protein passes about 180F it curdles, and neither of these is protected by enough starch to forgive a boil.
- The hinge: keep it under a simmerCook the cup custard over water at a bare tremble and pull it at 175-180F on an instant-read thermometer, when it coats a spoon and holds a line drawn by a finger. The five minutes given is a guide, not a rule; a heavier basin or hotter water will take you past the point of no return sooner.
- Potato-flourSold now as potato starch, in the baking or kosher aisle. It gelatinises at a slightly lower temperature than cornstarch and gives a glossier, more delicate body; cornstarch can stand in at roughly the same quantity if that is what you have.
- Dessertspoonful and gill-era measuresA dessertspoonful is 2 teaspoons. Half a pint of milk is one cup. An ounce of caster sugar is about 2 tablespoons; caster is superfine sugar, and ordinary granulated dissolves fine here.
- Teacupful and breakfast cupfulPeriod sources vary: a teacup is reckoned at anywhere from about 4 to 6 fluid ounces, a breakfast cup at 8 to 9. Read the second custard as roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar to about 4 cups milk, which is a fair ratio for eight yolks.
- "Add flour to taste"Probably a compositor's slip for flavour to taste -- adding raw flour at that stage would be pointless and gritty. Treat it as vanilla, lemon zest or a spoonful of liqueur, added off the heat.
- Almond flavoringUse commercial almond extract, which is benzaldehyde-based and safe. Period recipes sometimes meant bitter almond oil or ratafia; do not substitute anything sold as bitter almond.
- Whole eggs versus the yolk-heavy versionThe first custard uses two whole beaten eggs and stays pourable. The second, eight yolks to two whites, sets far richer and smoother -- the whites are what make a custard firm and slightly rubbery, so the imbalance is deliberate.
- Cooling and the skinStirring as it cools works, but a round of parchment or plastic pressed to the surface is more reliable and lets you walk away. Chill at least three hours before serving the cups.
- YieldThe first custard makes roughly a cup and a half of sauce, enough for four servings of fruit or pudding. The second makes upwards of a quart, filling eight or more custard cups.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 volume was assembled at the height of the Waldorf's Franco-American cooking, and "French custard" here means the stovetop crème anglaise tradition rather than a baked custard -- a sauce or spoon dessert stirred over water, in contrast to the English habit of baking custard in the dish. In the potato-flour version, a little starch stabilises the eggs so a busy kitchen can hold the sauce without it breaking, the same logic behind the cornstarch in modern pastry cream. Custard could be served in individual cups or stemmed glasses -- small handled porcelain vessels sold by the half dozen -- rather than turned out as a moulded shape.