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Cheesecakes
Parmesan Custard. See "Talmouses," No. 2, under Cheeses and Cheese Dishes.
Cheesecakes - Yorkshire. See Cheesecakes - Curd.
Cherries for Cold Pudding should be cooked in hot syrup a few minutes to swell and to mellow. (Glacé Cherries.) Chestnuts - to Cook.
Cut off their tops, and put them on a baking sheet into the oven 25 minutes or more. When sufficiently done, shake them over the fire in a frying pan - shaking them all the time to allow them to crisp and crack. Send up in hot napkin. Chestnuts "à la Célestine." (Auchentorlie. 1879.) The chestnuts are boiled and passed through a sieve and sweetened with sugar and then passed a second time through the sieve.
The centre of a dish is filled with "tutti frutti" cold stewed pear, apple, melon, pineapple, apricot, cut small and round, the size of a dollar. The syrup flavoured with rum. Over this whipped cream, and at the last the chestnut snow round, which must not get into the juice. "Chestnut Snow." (Lady Buchanan.) To 16 ozs. of shelled chestnuts boiled in milk, and when dry passed through a sieve, add 4 ozs. of sugar, flavoured with vanilla. Pass again through the sieve on to the dish you served it in; cover with Italian Cream, No. 1 (see Cream), flavoured with vanilla; garnish with "pigs" of stewed orange round if liked. "Choux Paste." See Éclairs.
Compote - Strawberry or Currant. See Apricot Compote, also Apple Compote. Cranberries, fresh for Luncheon. (Mrs. Farquharson, Monaltrie House.) Put the cranberries in a preserving pan with half their weight of refined sugar, and boil 5 or 6 minutes only; then put them in stoneware moulds. The preserve will, when cold, become quite firm.
A day or two after it is made turn it out of the mould and serve whipped cream or plain cream. It keeps as well as jam, but is prettiest in colour when freshly made. Cranberries, the German way. (Princess von Reuss.) See Preserved Fruit. Cranberries, called "Kisselle." (Miss Young's Russian Recipe.) Take a cupful of rice or potato flour, a bottle of cranberry juice and water, or of red currant juice and water - sugar to taste. Mix it very gradually and stir it by degrees as the juice is added (in the same way as starch is made). Boil it. If when it begins to boil it appears too thick, add juice and water. It should be of the consistency of starch; dip a jelly mould in water and pour in the "Kisselle." Let it stand in a cool place till cold; eat it with sugar and cream.
Cranberry Tower.
A pretty dish, a hollow round tower of thin layers of Cataldi's Feuilletage flaky puff paste (see Paste and Pastry), with cranberry jam between, cut through when you help it. Centre filled with Chantilly cream. See Italian Cream, No. 1, under Cream. Cranberry. See also Ices.
Cream - Brown Bread Cream, "Crème à la Royale." (1890.) First make a custard of the yolks of 4 eggs to ½ pt. of milk, with 2 ozs. of sugar, a tablespoonful of sherry, and 4 sheets of gelatine. Have ready ½ pt. of good whipped cream and 4 oz. of brown bread - crumbs.
When the custard is nearly cold add the cream and the crumbs; put it into a plain mould which you have first lined with glacé cherries. (Some prefer less gelatine, and put the mould into the refrigerator to set.) Cream - "Burnt Cream." No. 1. Turned out of a Mould. Put into a stewpan 2 ozs. of pounded sugar; add the grated rind of 2 lemons. Stir with a wooden spoon over a slow fire until the sugar looks golden, or rather light brown. Then pour in a pint of cream and 3 ozs. more of sugar, the yolks of 3 eggs, and a little salt. Stir the whole, always one way, over a slow fire till the eggs are set, then strain the custard through a tammy into a large basin, and mix into it ½ pt. of whipped cream and 1½ ozs. of clarified isinglass. Pour the cream into a mould embedded in rough ice. (N.B. - The original MS. is very indistinct and blotted, and the figures for sugar and eggs might be 8 each instead of 3. - C.F.F.) Cream - "Burnt Cream." No. 2. (Miss Stovin.) Take a little lemon peel shredded fine, and boil it with a pint of cream and some sugar.
Then take the yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 4, and beat them separately in 2 basins. As soon as the cream has cooled put in the eggs with a tablespoonful of orange - flower water, and 1 of fine flour. Set it over the fire, keep stirring till it is thick, and then put it into a trifle dish.
When it is quite cold sift ¼ lb. of fine sugar all over it, and salamander the sugar till it is very brown.
Cream - "Burnt Cream." No.3. (I. Emslie. 1893.) This will take the yolks of 4 eggs to a pint of cream. First let the cream boil up.
Have the yolks in a basin with a teaspoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of orange-flower water, and, as you add the cream, beat all well in. Next return it to the pan, and let all boil up at the side of the fire quickly for a minute or so only. Stir all the time lest it should curdle.
Strain it into the dish in which it goes to table. Let it get quite cold and set. Then powder thickly over with sugar, and salamander the top so as to make a crust of icing, brown, but not burnt. This sugar top should look like clear brown glass. Serve cold. Cream - "Burnt Cream." No. 4. "Cambridge Crème Brûlée*." - (The Hon. Mrs. St. John. 1892.) Boil a pint of cream, sweetened to taste, for one minute. Pour over it the well-beaten yolks of 4 eggs. Put it again on the fire just to come to the boil, then pour it into a dish and let it get cold. Strew a thick crust of pounded sugar over it. Put for 10 minutes in a slow oven and then brown with a salamander and serve cold. Cream - Chantilly Cream. See Italian Cream, No. 1.
Cream - "Crème à la Portugaise." See Portuguese Cream. * For this delicious dish two other excellent recipes are to be found respectively in Mrs. Earle's "Pot pourri from a Surrey Garden," and in Hilda's "Diary of a Cape Housekeeper," by Miss Duckitt (Chapman and Hall). This latter is also called "Cambridge recipe." - C.F.F.
Cream - "Crème à la Royale." See Brown Bread Cream.
Cream - "Crème à la Vanille."
Faites bouillir une bouteille de lait, où vous mettrez infuser un demi - bâton de vanille et 6 onces de sucre fin; dans un autre vase fouettez 10 jaunes d'œuf, et versez-y peu à peu le lait; videz-le, l'un vase à l'autre, 4 ou 5 fois. Passez-le à un tamis de soie. Reservez environ 1/6me de votre appareil quand vous le versez dans votre moule; placez votre moule cuire au bain - marie, sans bouillir, ne le démoulez que froid. Mettez dans une casserole sur le feu le 1/6me de votre appareil; tournez-le jusqu'à ce qu'il soit lié en crème; il vous servira pour masquer le flanc. Cream - "Crème de Riz." See Rice (Ground Rice Steamed), also Soufflés. Cream - "Crème Meringuée." See Soufflé - Almond.
Cream - "Crème Pâtisserie." See Tart - "Frangipani." Cream - "Crème Renversée." (Mrs. Farrer.) Put 3 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar in a sugar pan, and let it simmer over a gentle fire till it candies, taking care that the sugar does not become too highly coloured. When it is sufficiently done cover the sides and bottom of a charlotte mould well with it, and let it grow cold. Take a pint of fresh cream. Put it in a stewpan with 6 ozs. of white sugar and a stick of vanilla.
Let it boil 10 minutes to flavour the cream thoroughly. Take the yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 2. Beat them well, and mix the flavoured cream with the eggs. Pass the whole through a tammy, and fill the charlotte mould. Steam it, and do not turn it out till quite cold. (See Portuguese Cream for best way to line mould with the sugar.) Cream - "Curds and Cream." No. 1. Very like Devonshire Junket. (Emslie.) 1 pt. of milk should be made lukewarm, then put into the trifle dish; stir into it ½ teaspoonful of liquid rennet (should the rennet be solid, cut a small piece off, steep it in water, and use that water); let the dish be in a warm place till the mixture has set, then in a cool place. It will set in 10 minutes in summer, and 30 in winter. (These are the curds used for Curd Cheesecakes.) When about to send it to table, cover the curds with plain thick cream. Cream-"Curds and Cream." No. 2. Minto "Hatted-Kit." (Lady Colebrook. 1877.) Pour sweet milk boiling on fresh buttermilk in equal quantity. It will turn into curds. Strain the curds in a colander till solid. Serve the curds in a glass dish at luncheon, as you would clotted cream.
To eat with stewed fruit, or with brown bread and salt, adding plain cream, but do not butter the brown bread; this "kit" is instead. If you have no buttermilk, use fresh milk and rennet. (I prefer fresh new milk curds drained, squeezed, and turned out. - C.C.) Cream - Devonshire Cream. No. 1.
The milk when brought in warm from the cow should be strained into tin or zinc pans. The latter are best. After standing from 12 to 24 hours, according to the state of the weather, set it over a steamer of boiling water for 20 or 25 minutes, till small bubbles rise, but by no means let it boil. Then take it off, and set it in the dairy to cool, where it must remain 12 hours more before it is skimmed. Cream - Devonshire Cream. No. 2.
Take the evening's milk, and let it stand in a cool place till 10 the next morning. Then put it on a slow charcoal fire, to simmer till it bubbles, which will be in from 6 to 8 hours; take it off the fire, and let it stand 24 hours, at the end of which time the cream will be ready to be skimmed off.
Cream - Honeycomb Cream. See Stone Cream.
Cream - Italian or Chantilly Cream. No. 1.
The best (like ours at Turin) is only well - sweetened plain whipped cream, flavoured with the essence of lemon, vanilla, orange - flower water, or what you will. 1 pt. cream, 2 ozs. of sugar, and a pounded stick of vanilla. (No wine, no lemon-juice.) Ornament if you like with sponge ("lady's finger") biscuits divided and cut into shapes. Serve with fruit tarts. This cream is used in Charlotte Russe and many other recipes.
Cream - Italian Cream. No. 2. (Sometimes called "Snow Cheese," or "Whips.") Whip 1 pt. of thick cream, the juice of 2 large lemons, with sugar to your taste, rub it on their rinds, a tablespoonful of white wine.
Beat it with a whisk till quite firm, which it will be in a few minutes; then put it on a sieve lined with muslin, and let it stand all night. Serve in jelly glasses. - Cream - "Kymac." (Sir C. Fellows.) A Turkish recipe.
To make it well, put new milk into a shallow oval tin pan; let it stand 12 hours in a cool place.
Then, without disturbing the milk and cream, put the tin vessel an inch above the fire, which must be a clear fire, but not touch the pan; or you may put the tin on a hot hearth. Let it simmer for 1 hour, but never boil; do not stir it. A thick scum will form over it, which must not be broken. When this is formed put it again for 12 hours into a cool place to stand for cream, and it will be found that by next day the cream has saturated and adhered to the spongy under - part of the scum. Then carefully put your hands into the dish under this coating, which is nearly ½ inch thick, and without breaking it transfer the whole surface of the cream into a glass trifle dish. When taken off it may be doubled or rolled up. Serve with sweet dishes, fruit pies, stewed fruit, puddings, tarts, or coffee. To make it more quickly or richer, you may add 2 gills of cream to each 4 qts. of milk. Sir C. Fellows says: "Kymac will keep sweet for days."
In Devonshire these oval tin pans are rarely made to hold less than 5 qts., and in a Devonshire farm you will never see less than 12 of these oval tin milk vessels, each holding 5 qts. at least.
This is a run of alphabetical entries from Lady Clark's manuscript collection rather than a single recipe, so it mixes finished dishes with bare cross-references. Several of the cream entries are workable today; the raw-milk clotted creams at the end are not.
- Why the cautionDevonshire Cream Nos. 1 and 2 and the Turkish "Kymac" all begin with unpasteurised milk straight from the cow and hold it for long periods at ambient temperature: No. 1 stands 12 to 24 hours before it is scalded, No. 2 sits on a slow charcoal fire until it bubbles (6 to 8 hours) and then stands another 24, Kymac simmers an hour and then stands 12 hours. No temperature is specified anywhere and the heating is uncontrolled, while the long unrefrigerated holds before and after are exactly the conditions in which Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Shiga-toxin E. coli multiply. Use a current clotted-cream method with pasteurised cream instead.
- Raw milk elsewhere on the page"Curds and Cream" No. 1 sets lukewarm milk with rennet and holds it in a warm place; Minto "Hatted-Kit" pours boiling milk onto fresh buttermilk and drains the curd without refrigeration. Neither brings the dairy to a controlled temperature, so the same objection applies: use pasteurised milk and buttermilk and chill the curd promptly.
- SalamanderA salamander was an iron disc on a handle heated red in the fire and held over the sugar. A blowtorch is the closest modern equivalent; an overhead grill set very high also works, though it warms the custard through more than a salamander did.
- Burnt Cream No. 1 is unusable as printedThe editor's own note admits the manuscript is blotted and that the sugar and egg figures "might be 8 each instead of 3." Three yolks and 3 oz of sugar to a pint of cream is a materially different dish from eight of each, and there is no way to tell which was meant. Work from No. 3 or No. 4 instead, which are internally consistent.
- Isinglass and gelatine sheetsIsinglass is a fish-derived setting agent, traditionally from sturgeon swim bladders, now sold mainly for fining beer and wine rather than for cooking. Sheet or leaf gelatine is the usual substitute, but Victorian leaves varied in strength; modern platinum leaf runs about 1.7 g each, so 4 sheets to roughly a pint of liquid gives a firm turn-out mould. The bracketed suggestion of less gelatine and a spell in the refrigerator is the better modern reading.
- Measures and vesselsPints here are imperial, 20 fl oz, and a gill is a quarter of that, 5 fl oz. "Cream" would have meant rich unhomogenised dairy cream; double or heavy cream (around 48 per cent fat) is the nearest, rather than single or half-and-half. A tammy is a tightly woven worsted straining cloth: a fine sieve or chinois does the same work. A charlotte mould is the plain tapered tin, commonly 1½ to 2 pints.
- Custard temperature"Let all boil up" and "just to come to the boil" will scramble a modern yolk custard on a gas or induction hob far faster than on a hearthside. Stir to 175-180F and pull it off. "Slow oven" is nowhere defined in the book; read it as roughly 300-325F.
- ChestnutsFor the oven-roasted entry, cut a cross through the shell rather than merely cutting off the top; the book gives no temperature, so reckon on about 400-425F for 25 to 30 minutes. Chestnut Snow specifies 16 oz of shelled chestnuts, i.e. kernels rather than weight in the shell — allow roughly a quarter more unshelled.
- KisselleRussian kisel. "A bottle" of juice is not a fixed quantity; a bottle of this period was around 1¼ imperial pints, so treat it as roughly that, and start with a cupful of potato starch slaked in cold juice, adding more liquid until it slackens to a pourable cream. Potato starch sets softer and clearer than rice flour and is the usual choice for kisel.
- Odds and ends of vocabulary"Pigs" of orange are peeled segments. Cataldi's feuilletage simply means bought or made puff pastry. Glacé cherries in the Brown Bread Cream are the candied kind, and the brown breadcrumbs should be dried and toasted or they will turn to paste in the custard.
Lady Clark of Tillypronie's book was assembled from her own manuscript notebooks and published in 1909, some years after her death, by Catherine Frances Frere, whose editorial initials "C.F.F." appear in the bracketed asides here; the entries credited to Lady Buchanan, Mrs Farquharson of Monaltrie, Miss Emslie and the rest are recipes gathered from the kitchens of friends and country houses, mostly Scottish, and dated as she received them. That method explains the four competing versions of burnt cream sitting side by side: she collected rather than reconciled. There is also an entry headed "Cambridge Crème" — the dish is popularly associated with the burnt cream long served at Trinity College, Cambridge, though sugar caramelised over a set custard appears in English and Scottish manuscript cookery well before that association was fixed. "Hatted kit" is a genuinely Scots survival, a soft curd raised by pouring hot milk onto buttermilk, eaten with brown bread and salt rather than butter.