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partly cool add one-half teaspoonful of vanilla, and pour over the cake. When ready to serve beat the whites to a stiff froth, adding one tablespoonful of sugar and a little lemon-juice while beating. Drop lightly by spoonfuls on top of the custard, and put a few bits of bright-colored jelly on the meringue.
This is the tail end of a longer recipe — a stale-cake pudding in which slices are laid in a dish, soaked with a stirred custard, and topped with meringue at the last minute. The opening lines, with the quantities of milk, egg yolks and sugar, fall on the preceding page, so what survives here is the finishing method rather than a complete formula.
- What the missing part almost certainly wasRecipes of this type generally begin with a stirred custard of milk, egg yolks and sugar poured over stale sponge, pound or plain cake in a deep dish. The exact quantities fell on the preceding page and cannot be recovered from what survives here.
- "Partly cool"Vanilla is added off the heat because alcohol-based extract loses aroma in a hot custard. Let the custard drop to warm rather than hot: still warm enough to soak into dry cake, cool enough to keep the flavour.
- Pouring over the cakeStale cake absorbs far better than fresh. Pour the custard in stages and press the slices down; an hour in the refrigerator gives an even, sliceable set rather than a dry layer under a wet one.
- The meringue proportionOne tablespoonful of sugar per recipe is unusually little by modern standards — this is a soft, barely sweet foam, not a stiff Italian meringue. If the original called for three or four whites, count on 1-2 tablespoonfuls of sugar per white for a foam that holds its shape on the plate.
- The lemon juiceAcid stabilises the foam and keeps it from weeping. A quarter teaspoonful per white is plenty; cream of tartar does the same job.
- Raw whitesThis meringue is never cooked — it is dropped on cold custard and served. If it is going to anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurised egg whites. Browning the top briefly under a hot broiler colours the surface but will not heat the interior enough to make raw whites safe.
- "Bright-colored jelly"Redcurrant, quince or crabapple jelly, all commonly kept in period households. Warm it slightly and drop it in small beads so it sits on the surface instead of bleeding into the white.
- Timing and yieldBeat and apply the meringue immediately before it goes to the table; it begins to shed liquid within the hour. The surviving text gives no quantities, so no yield can be stated.
Puddings of this kind — stale cake, a poured custard, a spooned meringue — are a common nineteenth-century answer to the question of what to do with cake that has gone dry. The structure is that of a queen of puddings or a trifle without the wine, and it depends on a thrift built into the egg: the yolks go into the custard, the whites are beaten for the top, and nothing is wasted. Cakes of the period were generally plainer than a modern loaf and went dry faster. The bits of bright jelly are decoration in the same spirit as the sugar work of the period — colour supplied cheaply from the preserve shelf rather than bought in.