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Baked Custard
Instead of cooking the above mixture over hot water, strain into custard cups or a mold set in a pan of water. Bake in a slow oven 325°F. until firm. Custards are done when puffy on top and firm in center, or when a silver knife, inserted in the center, comes out clean. 2 cups milk 2 tablespoons sugar teaspoon vanilla
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: it depends on the soft custard printed above it, and the ingredient list as reproduced here is incomplete. Read it as baking instructions for a standard stirred-custard base.
- The missing eggsA custard of 2 cups milk needs eggs, and the listing here has lost them in transcription. The usual proportion for a baked custard firm enough to unmold is 3 to 4 whole eggs per 2 cups milk; 2 eggs gives a very soft set suitable only for spooning from the cup.
- The sugar is deliberately lowThe sugar is low -- Two tablespoons for 2 cups milk is barely sweet by dessert standards. Increase to 1/4 cup if serving it as a dessert.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives the slow oven as 325F outright. Much hotter and the egg protein curdles, leaving the custard weeping and pitted.
- The water bath is the hingeThe pan of water is not optional. It caps the temperature around the cups so the outer custard does not overcook before the center sets. Use water hot from the tap, coming halfway up the cups, and set the pan on a folded towel or rack rather than directly on the metal.
- Judging doneness"Puffy on top" is a slightly late signal for individual cups. The book's second test, a knife coming out clean, is the more reliable one; the book says to insert it in the center, though in practice testing between center and edge, with the very center still trembling, is safer. Carryover heat finishes it as it cools.
- The silver knifeSilver was a thin, non-reactive blade commonly to hand, though the book does not say why it is specified. Any thin knife tip or a metal skewer does the same job.
- StrainingThe instruction to strain catches chalazae and any threads of set egg from the mixing. It costs nothing and is the difference between a smooth custard and a speckled one.
- Timing and yieldNo time is given. In individual cups expect 30 to 40 minutes; in a single mold, 50 to 60. The quantity makes about four small cups.
Invalid cookery was a fixed chapter in many American household manuals well into the twentieth century, from a time when a sick relative was nursed at home and the kitchen supplied the diet. Its dishes are soft, bland and low in sugar and fat: beef tea, gruels, milk toast, junket, and above all custard, valued because eggs and milk delivered protein and calories in a form a weak stomach would accept. Baked custard here is simply the same mixture as the stirred custard above, diverted to the oven, and the note is written the way a cook actually works rather than as a separate formula. The Metropolitan Cook Book was issued by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and given free to policyholders, part of a broader early-twentieth-century campaign in which insurers promoted domestic hygiene and nutrition. Whether this particular custard was printed in a sickroom chapter cannot be established from the page as given.