Home › The World's Kitchen › Custard Fritters
Custard Fritters
Break five eggs into a bowl, add three ounces powdered sugar, three-quarters of a pint cold milk and one teaspoon juice from a sound lemon. Briskly beat up the whole together with a whisk for five minutes. Strain through a strainer into a lightly buttered tin pan and set in the oven to bake for twenty minutes. Remove from the oven and let get cold. Turn it then on the lightly floured part of a table and cut the custard into lozenge-shaped pieces; turn each piece in the flour, then in beaten eggs, after this in bread or cake crumbs. Arrange them in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat for five minutes, lift up, thoroughly drain on a cloth and sprinkle a little fine sugar over, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A baked custard cut into diamonds, crumbed and deep-fried — the success of it rests entirely on getting the custard firm and cold before it goes anywhere near fat.
- Chill it properlyThe custard must be refrigerated until thoroughly cold and set, ideally several hours or overnight. "Let get cold" at room temperature will leave it slack, and slack custard breaks apart in the crumbing or bursts its coating in the fat.
- Pan depthUse a pan that gives a slab about 3/4 inch thick; with this quantity an 8-inch square tin yields something closer to 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Thinner and the lozenges are too fragile to handle; thicker and the centre will not be hot through in the brief frying.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. A slow-to-moderate oven, around 325F, suits a custard of this richness, and standing the tin in a larger pan of hot water is insurance against curdling and weeping. Twenty minutes may be enough for a thin slab; judge by the centre being just set with a slight wobble rather than by the clock.
- The pintIf the book follows US measure, three-quarters of a pint is 1 1/2 cups; if imperial, 15 fluid ounces. That is a difference of about a quarter of the liquid, which does tell on the set — err toward the smaller amount for a firmer slab.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Three ounces is about 7 tablespoons of granulated sugar by weight, a scant half cup.
- Frying timeFive minutes in "boiling fat" is far too long. At 350 to 375F the crumbs colour in 1 to 2 minutes, and the custard inside only needs warming — longer and it liquefies and blows the coating open.
- Crumbs and coatingCake crumbs brown much faster than bread crumbs, so watch them. A second pass through egg and crumbs seals the cut edges and is worth the trouble.
- YieldAbout 16 to 20 lozenges, serving four to six as a dessert. Fry in small batches so the fat holds its temperature, and serve at once — they collapse as they sit.
Fried custard has a long history as a European sweet fritter, and versions of it survive in Italy as crema fritta, in Spain as leche frita, and in French kitchens as crème frite, where a stiff pastry-cream slab is cut, crumbed and fried. All rest on the same principle: a custard set firm enough to cut behaves like a solid. A dish of this kind suits a professional kitchen, where a slab baked ahead can be cut, crumbed and dropped into the friture to order in a couple of minutes. The folded napkin on the serving dish is a period convention of formal service, fried items being dressed on linen.