Old-fashioned desserts

My first cookbook was the 1957 edition of “Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls” (Golden Press, facsimile edition $16.95). Way in the back of the book were all the desserts you might want to serve with dinner, including a recipe for Hot Fudge Pudding. What a revelation, a cake that made its own chocolate sauce while it baked. Now that was sophistication!

Since then I’ve inherited and been given dozens of cookbooks dating from the late 1800s through the 1960s. Their pages are filled with roasted capons, oyster salad and Scrambled Eggs a la Stanley — dishes that don’t often find their way onto modern dinner tables.

But the desserts — what fun to read through the recipes. Wine jellies and Bavarian creams, Tipsy Squire and Twentieth Century Pound Cake. Syrup custard, boiled custard and rice puddings of every persuasion. Chapters devoted to gingerbread and hundreds and hundreds of cakes.

Interleaved in the pages, there are recipe cards including my mother’s lemon meringue pie torn from the pages of a 1960s Florida Citrus Commission booklet or President Calvin Coolidge’s Custard Pie, handwritten by my next-door neighbor Marie Cooper on July 23, 1927.

These were recipes written for the women who put three meals a day on the table for their families or employers, in a time when a piece of fruit was not considered dessert.

So many of the early recipes assumed you knew your way around the kitchen. The directions for Mary’s Spice Cake in Mrs. S. R. Dull’s classic 1928 “Southern Cooking” consist entirely of these three sentences: Mix soda in flour. Mix as any cake. Bake 1 1/2 hours in tube pan.

Preparing for this story, I polled my friends. What were their favorite old-fashioned desserts? Unless someone came from a family that “doesn’t do dessert,” as one friend declared, everyone waxed rhapsodic about their favorites.

Tapioca and other milk-based puddings were most often mentioned. I began to think my friends had been raised by English nannies on nursery food.

Bread pudding, chocolate pudding, coconut or banana cream pie, pound cake, coconut cake, peach or apple cobbler, the suggestions came rolling in.

Trifle, chess pie, apple dumplings, strawberry shortcake and even frozen fruit salad, the suggestion of Darrin Ellis-May who included a scan of the ingredient-splattered page from her treasured copy of “Charleston Receipts” (Favorite Recipes Press, $19.95).

I thought Sara Henderson captured the feeling of these old-fashioned desserts best when she described them as anything made from scratch out of simple, straightforward ingredients and made in a family-style dish rather than individual servings.

Musing on why these desserts are so popular on restaurant menus these days, Henderson said, “Could it be part of the whole ‘slow food’ thing to be over imported kiwis topped with mascarpone and garnished with freeze-dried basil served in a shot glass?”

Here’s to desserts our grandmothers would have recognized.

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Recipes

With apologies if your favorite isn’t here, it was hard to choose just what to feature. These three recipes feature ingredients you probably have in your pantry right now. And none requires much hands-on time. I hope you’ll find time to revisit one of these classic recipes.

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Lemon Pudding

Hands on: 10 minutes Total time: 45 minutes Serves: 4

When baked, this “pudding” forms a light, fluffy cake on top and a rich sauce on the bottom. The one lemon provides just enough lemon flavor, and the whipped egg whites are what make the cake so light. Add a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if you’re so inclined.

1 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

2 eggs, separated

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch baking dish. Set baking dish inside a roasting pan and add 1 inch warm water.

In a medium bowl, combine sugar and flour; stir in milk, egg yolks, lemon zest and juice and salt.

In a medium bowl, whip egg whites until stiff. Fold into sugar mixture and pour into buttered baking dish.

Set pans into oven and bake 35 minutes or until a knife blade inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm.

Per serving: 287 calories (percent of calories from fat, 11), 6 grams protein, 59 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 4 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 111 milligrams cholesterol, 200 milligrams sodium.

Adapted from the 1950 edition of “Charleston Receipts” (Favorite Recipes Press, $19.95)

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Baked Custard

Hands on: 5 minutes Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes Serves: 6

5 eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 cups milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly grease a 2-quart baking dish. Set baking dish inside a roasting pan and add 1 inch of water.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together until lemon-colored. Add milk and salt; whisk until thoroughly combined. Add vanilla or nutmeg and pour into prepared baking dish.

Bake until firm, about 1 hour, 15 minutes. While baking, check water in roasting pan and add more if needed. Carefully remove from oven. Serve custard hot, warm or cold.

Adapted from the 1920 edition of “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book” by Fannie Merritt Farmer (Little, Brown and Company). 1918 version is available for free at 1918 edition is available for free at www.bartleby.com/87/

Per serving: 209 calories (percent of calories from fat, 31), 11 grams protein, 25 grams carbohydrates, no fiber, 7 grams fat (3 grams saturated), 189 milligrams cholesterol, 317 milligrams sodium.

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Chocolate Custard Pie

Hands on: 15 minutes Total time: 15 minutes, plus chilling time Serves: 16

This recipe comes from the classic “Southern Cooking,” written by Mrs. S. R. Dull, once editor of the Home Economics page in the magazine section of The Atlanta Journal. The original recipe made for a scant filling, so we’ve increased the volume here to be more in line with today’s expectations. Shaved chocolate is easily made by running a vegetable peeler along the edge of a semi-sweet chocolate bar. Make the shavings directly over the pie or work over a piece of waxed paper and then sprinkle the shavings over the whipped cream. If you use the Never-Fail Hot Water Pastry recipe, make the crust and pour in the filling a day before serving. The result will be a more tender crust.

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

2 cups whole milk

6 tablespoons cornstarch

6 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Never-Fail Hot Water Pastry, baked (see recipe)

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Shaved chocolate for garnish (see note)

In a large saucepan, combine chocolate chips, 1 cup sugar and butter and heat over low heat until chocolate is melted and sugar is dissolved. Dissolve cornstarch in milk and add to sugar mixture.

In a large measuring cup, beat eggs. Stir in 1/4 cup chocolate mixture and beat until thoroughly combined. Repeat with another 1/4 cup chocolate, then pour egg mixture back into saucepan with remaining chocolate mixture. Continue to cook over low heat until mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into pie shell.

Cover and refrigerate pie. When ready to serve, in a medium bowl, whip cream and 2 tablespoons sugar until it forms soft peaks. Spoon over filling and decorate with shaved chocolate.

Adapted from the 1941 edition of “Southern Cooking” by Mrs. S. R. Dull (Grosset & Dunlap). Available from The University of Georgia Press, $24.95

Per serving: 416 calories (percent of calories from fat, 53), 6 grams protein, 44 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 25 grams fat (12 grams saturated), 118 milligrams cholesterol, 191 milligrams sodium.

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Never-Fail Hot Water Pastry

Hands on: 10 minutes Total time: 35 minutes

Makes 1 10-inch pie crust

If you have any reservations about making your own pie crust, give this recipe a try. The method does away with that tricky cutting in of the shortening and it makes a very firm crust that rolls out easily without sticking.

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup shortening

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a 2-cup measuring cup, heat water in microwave 1 minute or until it just comes to a boil. Carefully remove from microwave and stir in shortening. Beat until shortening is melted. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking powder. Pour shortening mixture over flour and use a fork to stir until combined.

Using a rolling pin, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer dough to a 10-inch pie plate and press down to line the sides and bottom of the pie plate. Trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie plate. Fold extra dough back over and form a decorative edge.

Place a large piece of parchment paper on top of dough and fill with dry beans or rice. Be sure the beans or rice are distributed all the way to the sides of the pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove parchment and beans or rice; continue baking until crust is golden in color, about 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove from oven and cool completely before filling

Adapted from the 1941 edition of “Southern Cooking” by Mrs. S. R. Dull (Grosset & Dunlap). Available from University of Georgia Press, $24.95

Per serving: 128 calories (percent of calories from fat, 47), 2 grams protein, 15 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 7 grams fat (2 grams saturated), no cholesterol, 141 milligrams sodium.