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Lemon Custard
Beat the yolks of eight eggs till they are white, add pint boiling water, the rinds of two lemons grated, and the juice sweetened to taste; stir this on the fire till it thickens, then add a large glass of rich wine, and one-half glass brandy; give the whole a good boil, and put in glasses. To be eaten cold. Or, put the thin yellow rind of two lemons, with the juice of three, and sugar to taste, into one pint of warm water. As lemons vary in size and juiciness, the exact quantity of sugar can not be given. Ordinary lemons requires three gills. It will be safe to begin with that quantity, more may be added if required. Beat the whites to a stiff froth, then the yolks; then beat both together, pour in gradually while beating the other ingredients; put all in a pail, set in a pot of boiling water, and stir until thick as boiled custard; strain it in a deep dish; when cool place on ice. Serve in glasses.—Mrs. Belle R. Liggett, Detroit, Mich.
Two versions of the same dessert, printed back to back: a fast stovetop custard fortified with wine and brandy, and a gentler one cooked over water. The second is the more reliable, and the instruction that governs both is temperature.
- Ignore "give the whole a good boil"An egg-yolk custard sets at roughly 175-180F and curdles above about 185F. Cook it until it coats a spoon and no further; a boil will scramble it. The second version's pail set in a pot of boiling water is the safer method and worth using for either.
- Gills and glassesA gill is half a cup, so three gills of sugar is 1 1/2 cups — a lot, but the mixture is a pint of lemon-water with the juice of three lemons. Start with 1 cup and taste. Period cookbooks usually reckon a wineglass at about 2 fl oz (1/4 cup), so a "large glass" of wine means somewhat more than that and the half glass of brandy correspondingly less; treat both as approximate.
- What wine"Rich wine" most likely means a sweet or fortified wine — sherry or Madeira. Add it off the heat, once the custard has thickened, or the alcohol and acid together will encourage curdling.
- Beat the yolks till whiteThis means pale and thickened, not literally white. Three or four minutes with a whisk, or two with a mixer, until the yolks lighten and ribbon off the beater.
- Temper the water inPour the boiling water into the beaten yolks slowly, in a thin stream, whisking the whole time. Dumping it in cooks the eggs on contact.
- Lemon rindGrate only the yellow zest, or pare the peel in strips as the second version does and steep it in the warm water before straining it out. Any white pith turns the custard bitter.
- Strain, alwaysOnly the second version calls for straining, but it is worth doing for both — it catches the inevitable threads of set egg and the zest, and is the difference between a smooth custard and a grainy one.
- YieldAbout a quart, which fills six to eight small glasses or custard cups. Chill thoroughly; it thickens further as it cools.
Lemon cream and lemon custard run straight through English cookery of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where citrus, sack or Madeira, and a great many egg yolks were the standard grammar of a genteel dessert — the boozy first version here is often described as an older lemon posset that has been thickened with yolks instead of curdled with acid. The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the whole family of late-century compiled American cookbooks: the publishers gathered contributions from readers and clubwomen and printed them side by side without reconciling the differences, so a single heading can carry two methods and two sets of proportions. The attribution to Mrs. Belle R. Liggett of Detroit is a reminder that these regional titles were often assembled from a national pool of correspondents, whatever the name on the spine promised. Serving the finished custard "on ice" still counted for something in the 1880s, when household ice came from a delivery wagon, though by then such deliveries and iceboxes were common enough in Northern cities.