Tag Archives: dessert

Invalid Cookery: Custard Souffle

I’m a bit late this week with invalid cookery, but health matters–mine and my husbands–keep getting in the way.  Now, more than ever, I need some good recipes for sick people, and this custard souffle looked appetizing.

I made a couple of mistakes when I made it.

  1. I made it early in the day, so I could see how it works. But it needs to be served immediately.
  2. I didn’t have my camera ready when it came out of the oven, so it did what souffles do, it fell before I could snap a picture.
custard souffle

This is what happens to custard souffle after just a minute out of the oven.

When it came out of the oven, the souffle was impressively domed above the dish.

Besides falling promptly, it is a bit fussy to make, as well.  Which in my opinion, makes it an inVALid recipe for INvalid cooking.

The  caretaker is going to be busy, and doesn’t need to add fussy recipes to their chore list.  The patient may not want to eat at the very moment that the custard emerges from the oven.  The custard does not keep well in the refrigerator. Oh, it tastes alright after it falls, but is certainly better when in the bloom of airy youth.

Joy of Cooking says that once you have mixed all the ingredients and filled the dishes, you can keep the custard in the refrigerator for several hours before cooking.  That would help a bit.

The one positive thing I can say for this recipe from <strongThe Home Makers’ Cooking School Cook Book, is that the recipe makes just two cups. One for the patient and one for the cook?

If you want to try your hand at a souffle, this might be a good starting point. If ever it were important to carefully read a recipe before starting, always a good idea, it is doubly important with this one.

Custard Souffle

  • 2 level teaspoons butter [plus more to grease the dishes]
  • 2 level teaspoons flour
  •  1/3 C milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar

Melt the butter, add the flour and blend smoothly, without browning.  Pour in the milk and cook three minutes after boiling point is reached.  Separate the white from the yolk of the egg and beat each.  Pour hot mixture (let it cook a little) over the yolk, put in the sugar and fold in gently the stiffly beaten white.  Turn into two greased cups and bake in a steady oven [350 degrees] till firm–about fifteen minutes.  Serve at once, with or without sauce.

Here are a few tips:

It would be a good idea to grease the custard cups before doing anything else. Really coat them well, because once baked, egg whites are very sticky.

Use a very small pan so that you can stir the flour-butter-milk mixture well. It works best to use a whisk along with a spoon to scrape the sides and bottom of the pan.

It is not necessary to keep the temperature at boiling as it cooks.  Usually recipes with milk stop at a simmer.

If you have a few stubborn lumps, pour the custard through a sieve when you put it in the eggs.

I’m surprised that the recipe calls for the slightly cooled butter-flour-milk mixture into the egg yolks without a bit of tempering. To avoid cooking the eggs, slowly raise their temperature by stirring in a teaspoon at a time  of the hot mixture until the until the yolks have warmed, then stir all the rest of the egg yolk into the warm mixture.

Don’t forget to add the sugar before folding in the egg white.

If you take the souffle out of the oven before the center is entirely firm, it will avoid overcooking.

Most recipes call for baking custards in a water bath to keep the temperature more even and avoid  overcooking. This book does recommend that practice in a chapter with regular custards, but perhaps by the time the reader gets to the invalid cookery in the back of the book, she is expected to know that.

For the water bath method, pour enough water in a pan with sides (deep cake pan or broiler pan) to come up about 2/3 of the way to the top of the level of the custard in the dishes. Put that pan of water in the oven, then add the filled custard cups. Bake as described above.

I’m going to try an easier custard recipe, one that will keep in the refrigerator, to tempt my sick husband’s appetite, and I’ll give you that recipe next week.

Cherry Cobbler

cherry cobbler

Cherry cobbler close up

Can she bake a cherry pie,

Billy boy, Billy boy?

Can she bake a cherry pie,

charming Billy?

“Yes she can bake a cherry pie

in the twinkling of an eye,

but she’s a young thing

and cannot leave her mother.”

 

Obviously, baking a cherry pie is an important measure of a girl’s marriageability judging by this old song. When Erasmus worried in his last letter about not letting anyone get his young cherry trees–so that he could graft onto them next year, he was probably thinking of the desserts that would come from the trees (like cherry cobbler) as well as the farm chores in raising them.

Cherry trees have a long history in Ohio. According to one website, The Ancient Ohio Trail, early pioneers found a profusion of cherry trees in a valley near the prehistoric earthworks in the Newark, Ohio area.

 

 Cherry cobbler cherries

Cherries for cherry cobbler

Although cherries were prevalent in Civil War times, production seems to be declining in America.  The price of cherries has soared.  While you can still get fresh cherries in season at grocery stores, it is more and more difficult to find frozen or canned cherries, and I paid more than $4.00 for a can of plain cherries to make this recipe for cherry cobbler.

We’ve covered pie baking pretty thoroughly here with the Perfect Pie Crust and recipes for different pies. So I chose another favorite old-time recipe for cherries. Suzi Anderson no doubt would have cherry cobbler for Erasmus before he left for the Civil War. (If you’re confused by the difference between crisps, slumps, grunts and cobblers, refresh your memory here.)

Cherry Cobbler cookbook

Mary Margaret McBride Cookbook that the cherry cobbler recipe came from.

I found a recipe in another of my vintage cookbooks, Mary Margaret McBride’s Harvest of America (1956). (See a short summary of the book, long out of print, on my food book page.) Although you may never have heard of MMM, she was the Martha Stewart/Oprah Winfrey of mid-twentieth century–a multi-media star who dispensed advice to women. Her radio program was popular from the 1930s and she expanded her reach into TV and books through the 1950s.

Magazine cover, 1951

Mary Margaret McBride and singer Gordon MacRae, 1951

Here’s my version of Mary Margaret McBride’s recipe for cherry cobbler. (For an upside down version of this cherry dessert, see Aunt Sarah’s Cherry Pudding.)

Cherry Cobbler

Serves 6-8
Prep time 20 minutes
Cook time 25 minutes
Total time 45 minutes
Allergy Milk, Wheat
Meal type Dessert
Misc Serve Cold, Serve Hot
From book Mary Margaret McBride's Harvest of American Cooking

Ingredients

  • 2 cans pitted sour cherries (NOT pie filling)
  • 1/2 cup sugar (according to taste--you may want more)
  • 1/2 cup liquid from can
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 3/4 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 cups sifted all purpose flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter, room temperature, but still solid
  • 3/4 cups milk

Directions

filling
1. Drain liquid from cherries and save liquid.
2. Put cherries and measured liquid in pan with sugar. Bring to boil
3. Put cornstarch in small dish and add a spoonful of water, mix into a paste and then stir into pan of cherries.
4. Pour cherry mixture into greased 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 baking dish.
5. Dot with small pieces of butter and sprinkle with cinnamon.
pastry
6. Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt
7. Cut in shortening, cut in small pieces until there are no clumps larger than a pea.
8. Add milk and stir with fork. Best to finish with hands--but don't over mix.
9. Press dough into roughly the size of baking dish and lay dough on top of cherries. Poke holes here and there in the pastry.
10. Bake at 400 degrees 25-30 minutes.
11. Serve warm or chilled, with milk or whipped cream if you wish.

Note

Adapted from Mary Margaret McBride "Harvest of American Cooking" that used 3 cups pitted fresh cherries. She lists it under hot desserts, but I like it either way. Amount of sugar always depends on sweetness of cherries.

Grandma Badertscher’s Raisin Pie with Nuts

I’m still thinking about picnics and camping, and it just occurred to me that raisin pie would be a good picnic dessert.

Swiss raisin nut pie

Single piece of Swiss raisin nut pie.

Swiss Recipe

Move over, ancestors, Ken’s ancestors are joining us in the kitchen. In reading a family history of my husband Kenneth Ross Badertscher’s family, I came across an interesting clue to the popularity of raisin pie among Swiss Mennonite immigrants.

Raisin Pie's Ida Badertscher

Ida Badertscher

Ken’s grandmother Ida Badertscher’s father, Abraham Amstutz emigrated from the Jura Mountains of Switzerland in May 1871. He married “Lizzie” Steiner in Sonnenberg in Wayne County, Ohio in 1874. Ida was born the next year.

Ida had four great uncles.  One of those uncles, Ben Amstutz,  who had also come from Switzerland with their parents, was a cheese maker of some renown. His farm became known as “Benville.”  When Ben’s youngest daughter, Elma married Reuben Hofstetter in 1913, the details of the celebration were featured in the Dalton (Ohio) Gazette.

About 100 guests were invited to the dinner at the bride’s home in Benville and about the same number, the younger ones, for supper.  Anyone who has ever been present at that place in any kind of gatherings will know that something was doing this time.

50 raisin pies besides other kinds were baked and cake–well not quite as plenty as the silver at the building of Solomon’s temple, but a plenty.  Tropical fruits as oranges, bananas, California grapes, etc., in profusion.  The happy couple were the recipients of so many presents that two beds were completely covered.

A Family Recipe

recipe for raisin pie

Ida Badertscher recipe for Raisin-Nut Pie as written by Gertrude Badertscher about 1961

I was delighted to find this reference to raisin pie, as one of Ken’s mothers, Gertrude Badertscher (married to his uncle Monroe) gave me a recipe for raisin pie when Ken and I attended a Badertscher reunion shortly after we were married in the early 1960’s.

Ida Badertscher and Gertie Badertscher

Ida Badertscher and Gertie Badertscher, 1946

Gertie is also the source of the Badertscher banana bread recipe that Kay Badertscher wrote about earlier. But what is most exciting about this recipe is that it goes back to Ken’s grandmother–and probably to Switzerland where fresh fruit would have been hard to come by in the winter time.  Since Ida was a cousin of the bride in the story above, she might have baked a couple of those pies. Gertie wrote the recipe out for me and said:

P.S. This recipe must be at least 50 years old [making it now at least 100 years old] Grandma Badertscher was using this long before Monroe and I were married.

 

 

Other Recipes for Raisin Pie

I have found a few recipes for raisin pie, but not many, which prompted me to ask on Facebook if people grew up with raisin pie, in order to see if it had a single origin or was a regional thing. Obviously (50 pies at a wedding) it was popular among Swiss Mennonite immigrants in northern Ohio.  Most replies indicated it is generally a mid-western thing, and generally in regions with Germanic roots. To some, it is known as a funeral pie, because it was one of the traditional foods shared with a grieving family.

One person mentioned that their mother made the pie with meringue, and sure enough, I found a recipe for raisin pie with meringue in  Joy of Cooking. Another person had a recipe that is made with sour cream.  Sounds delicious, and although I can find it on the Internet, the cookbooks I own didn’t have that variety. Nor did any of them have the version of Ida Badertscher–half nuts and half raisins in a pie very similar to pecan pie–without the corn syrup.

raisin nut pie

Ida Badertscher RaisinNut Pie from top. Although many recipes call for a top crust, Ida’s did not.

Of course I never make this raisin nut pie without thinking of Gertie Badertscher and her handsome square red brick house with its huge grassy lawn at the far end of Main Street in Killbuck. And I also wonder what Ida Amstutz Badertscher would think of her pie still being baked in a 21st century kitchen.

So please join the conversation and tell us–did you grow up with raisin pie? Where from?

NOTE:  I made some revisions to my Perfect Pie Crust Recipe in January 2019. One involves folding the dough.  See the many layers in this close up the crust?

Raisin Nut Pie

Raisin pie single piece showing layers in pastry.

Grandma Badertscher’s Raisin Nut Pie

Allergy Egg, Milk, Tree Nuts
Meal type Dessert
Misc Child Friendly, Serve Cold
Region American

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3/4 cups milk
  • 3/4 cups nuts (chopped coarsely)
  • 3/4 cups raisins (cooked, or soaked in hot water for 15 minutes.)
  • 9" pie shell (unbaked)

Optional

  • whipped topping

Directions

1. Beat eggs well. Slowly add sugar and flour.
2. Beat in milk and vanilla and melted butter
3. Stir in nuts and raisins
4. Pour into unbaked pie shell
5. Bake raisin nut pie at 350 degrees about 45 minutes, or until custard is set. If nuts brown too quickly, put piece of foil over pie for last 15 minutes.
6. Serve raisin nut pie with whipped topping.

Note

Gertrude Badertscher added on the recipe card: This recipe must be at least 50 years old.  Grandma Badertscher was using this long before Monroe and I were married.