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Creme Au Caramel
Place in a copper basin one ounce powdered sugar with a quarter gill cold water; boil till a light brown, then mask the bottom of six individual pudding moulds with it. Beat up two eggs in a bowl with the yolk of another, adding two ounces fine sugar, two gills cold milk, one gill cold cream and half teaspoon vanilla essence. Sharply whisk up for two minutes. Strain the preparation through a Chinese strainer into the six moulds, equally divided. Lay them in a tin, pour in boiling water up to half the height of the mould and set in the oven for twenty minutes. Remove, let get cold, unmould on a dish and serve with the liquor of the caramel.
A standard French baked custard in miniature, written for a cook who already knows what a set custard should look like. The measurements convert cleanly; the oven instruction is the part that needs attention.
- The gillA gill is half a cup. So two gills milk is 1 cup, one gill cream is 1/2 cup, and the quarter gill of water for the caramel is 2 tablespoons.
- Sugar by weightOne ounce of sugar for the caramel is about 2 tablespoons; two ounces for the custard is a generous 1/4 cup. "Powdered" here most likely means finely granulated rather than modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the setting is left to the cook's judgement. Bake at 325F. Above about 350F the eggs tighten and weep, and the custard sets grainy rather than smooth.
- Twenty minutes is shortIndividual moulds at 325F usually need 30 to 40 minutes. Judge by feel, not the clock: the custard should be set at the edge with a small circle at the centre that still trembles when the tin is nudged. It firms as it cools.
- The water bathPouring boiling water halfway up the moulds is the hinge of the recipe. Use a towel or folded paper in the bottom of the tin so the moulds do not rattle, and top up with boiling water rather than cold if the level drops.
- Copper basin and Chinese strainerThe copper basin was for even heat under the caramel; any heavy small saucepan works, and do not stir the syrup once it is boiling. A "Chinese strainer" is a chinois, the cone-shaped fine sieve; a fine-mesh strainer catches the stringy bits of white just as well.
- Caramel colour"Light brown" is the intended stopping point and it happens fast. Pull the pan off the heat while the syrup is amber and swirl it into the moulds immediately, since it stiffens within seconds.
- Cooling and unmoulding"Let get cold" means several hours, ideally overnight in the refrigerator; a warm custard will collapse when turned out. Run a thin knife around the rim, invert onto the dish, and the caramel that has dissolved into syrup at the bottom becomes the sauce the recipe calls the liquor.
- YieldSix small moulds of about 1/3 cup each, or four larger ramekins with a slightly longer bake.
Crème au caramel, also sold as crème renversée for the fact that it is turned out upside down, belongs to the family of egg-and-milk custards that French professional kitchens standardised in the nineteenth century and then exported into hotel and restaurant service widely. The technique is older than the name: baked custards set in a water bath appear in European cookery long before caramel-lined moulds became the fashionable finish. The instruction to serve with "the liquor of the caramel" is the practical part: the hard caramel draws moisture from the custard as it chills and turns itself into sauce.