Welcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and today we are making a 200-year-old cheesecake!
A few years ago my mum gifted me this beautiful 200-year-old cookbook that her mother-in-law
had given to her.
It's just amazing to look through ... even the language that it uses.
In the intro here it says that it contains "everything yet invented for the gratification
of the appetite and a complete knowledge of the culinary art" it's a pretty amazing claim
right there.
It's got interesting recipes like how to cook cod's head... calf's heart... dried salmon
but of course I was more interested not so much in all of those savoury things but further
on in the book to the dessert section.
So today I'm going to challenge myself to make a fine cheesecake from 200 years ago.
Step one says 'put a pint of cream into a saucepan over the fire and when it is warm
add to it 5 quarts of milk immediately taken from the cow'.
Well, that could be a problem because we don't have a cow but look I found some cows.
"Want to have a staring competition?"
They are so good at this!
Now even though I found cows it is actually illegal to sell unpasturised milk in Australia
so I couldn't buy their milk.
Assuming that you also don't have a cow at your house then put the milk and the cream
into a saucepan and heat until it feels the same temperature as you, not hot, not cold
- body temperature.
Just like it would be if it had come fresh from a cow.
Next it says "Add to it some Rennet and give it a stir about and when it is turned, put
it into a linen cloth or bag."
Oh my we are making cheese.
200 years ago if you wanted to make a cheesecake the first thing you had to do was make cheese.
I don't have any rennet so I am using junket tablets that have rennet in them and just
dissolving those in half a cup of water.
If you're new around here I'll put all the recipe quantities on the howtocookthat.net
website like I do for all my recipes and there's a link to that below.
Add that to the milk and stir it about the leave that to side.
Now further on in the recipe it says that we need macaroons - and the recipe for them
is on another page.
"Blanch and beat fine a pound of sweet almonds and put to them to a pound of sugar and a
little rose water to stop them from oiling."
I'm going to cheat a little bit here and use some almonds that are already ground.
And then add some of them to the mortar and add the sugar and a little rose water just
like it said.
And then grind those together.
Macarons nowadays have icing sugar and caster sugar so this process will grind some of that
sugar finer.
It will probably depend how long you do it for as to how much of it and how fine it is.
Return that to the bowl with the rest of the almonds.
And then it says: "Beat the whites of the eggs to a froth."
Now, normally I'd just use my mixer for this of course, but this book was published 97
years before the electric mixer was invented.
So using the whisk ... my arm is getting so tired, okay swap arms.
This arm is not as fast as the other one, so swap back.
And let's just put it in fast forward...
and the egg whites are done - yesssss whoo. I did it by hand for the first time ever!
Next it says: "Put them in and work the whole well together."
I'm putting them in And working them together.
This mixture is very similar to macarons we know today.
It is just a little bit drier.
The light fluffy macarons with a little foot were invented 100 years later after this recipe
book was published - it's amazing what a difference playing with the proportions of an existing
recipe can make.
Next it says: "Drop them onto wafer paper and grate sugar over them and put them into
the oven."
I soooo want to use a piping bag for this but we are about 20 years too early for that.
So spoonfuls will have to do, then sprinkle them with a little sugar.
Then bake those in the oven, there is a total fire ban here in Australia so I can't use
a wood fire oven even if I had one - so you're going to have to let me cheat a little and
use the electric oven.
They don't look like the macarons we have today but they do actually taste exactly the
same.
Back to our milk, by now it has thickened and split into curds and whey.
Place a cheese cloth over a sieve and scoop in the milk mixture in and you'll see the
whey drips leaving those thickened curds at the top.
Once you have it all in the cloth tie it off at the top and allow it to hang over the bowl
so the rest of the whey can drip out.
Or as the books says "let it drain well away from the whey but do not squeeze it too much".
About an hour later you are left with cheese that is very similar in texture to ricotta
cheese that you'd buy from the shop.
Next it says: "put it into a mortar and pound it as fine as butter, add to in half a pound
of sweet almonds blanched, and half a pound of macaroons, both beat exceedingly fine."
Now my mortar is not as big as theirs is obviously so I'm going to have to do this in batches
and tip it into a bowl once it's fine.
As I grind these macarons I realize that the mortar and pestel is basically the food processor
of the 1800's
"Then add the yolks ... a grated nutmeg, a little rosewater or orange flower water and
half a pound of fine sugar.
Mix all well together".
Now if you want a smooth mixture you're going to have to pound it together in your motar
and pestel.
We have it so easy now, we can just chuck this into a food processor and get it smooth
in seconds.
It's a lot more excercise cooking when you don't have electricity.
Once you've got it smooth mix it together with rest of the cheese.
And then it says: "Melt a pound and a quarter of butter and stir it in well."
It is interesting that in these old recipe books they don't list the ingredients at the
top it is just through the recipe - I assume that is because the cost of printing would
have been much higher than it is now.
So after we've made our filling it says:"Then make a puff paste in this manner.
Take a pound of fine flour, wet it with cold water, roll it out, put into it by degrees
a pound of fresh butter and shake a little flour on each coat as you roll it."
Now if I didn't already know how to make puff pastry those instructions would be way too
concise for me to figure it out.
They must be assuming you have someone in the household who can teach you how to do
this.
Adding water to the flour to make a dough is pretty self explanatory.
Then you need to take your butter and flatten it between two sheets of baking paper until
you have a nice even layer and put that in the fridge.
While that's chilling roll out your dough.
You want all your ingredients cold when you're making puff pastry.
Once you have a nice rectangle, put the butter on one side and peel off the baking paper.
And then fold the rest of the pastry over the top, make sure there's no air in it.
Seal in the edges and trim it off to make a nice, neat square.
So at this stage we have two layers of pastry and one layer of butter in the middle.
Fold that in half and roll it out, now we are creating more layers of pastry separated
by the butter and the more you fold and roll, the finer those layers of pastry get.
So you get that flaky puff pastry.
Give it another fold then let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
You want to repeat that process two more times and then you are ready to use it.
Roll it out and line your dish, making sure that you don't have any air trapped under
the pastry.
Then trim around the outside, now I am leaving a border right over the edge there so that
we have some pastry that can puff up.
The stuff that is on the base and around the sides is not going to puff up because of the
weight of the filling.
Then pour in your filling into the base and bake that in the oven.
Once it is baked you want to leave it to cool completely and I think it's going to need
some berries on top so we'd better go and pick some like they would have 200-years-ago..
Wash your berries and pile them on top.
And the big question ... what does the 200-year-old cheesecake recipe taste like?
Well to me it tastes a bit like a rich ricotta cheesecake, it's a little bit dry for me so
it needs the fruit and little cream - un-whipped because I don't want to beat it by hand!
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Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.