Doucetes (custard)

“A custard” does not just refer to the thick yellow stuff we know and love, an early custard is almost always referring to thick custard baked in a pastry case. We still have these today in the form of custard tarts and pies. Custards are referred to in many plays of the period, and they’re often listed as part the menu of a banquet, seeming to bring with them connotations of richness, excess and courtly luxury.

Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books edited by Thomas Austin Harleian MS. 279 -- Dyuerse Bake Metis Original: pg.50

xv. Doucetes. Take Creme a gode cupfulle & put it on a straynoure; thanne take yolks of Eyroun & put ther-to & a lytel mylke; then strayne it thorw a straynoure in-to a bolle then take Sugre y-now & put ther-to, or ellys hony forde faute of Sugre than coloure it with Safroun; than take thin cofyns, & put in the ovynne lere, & lat hem ben hardyd; than take a dysshe y-fastenyd on the pelys ende; & pore thin comade in-to the dyssche, & fro the dyssche in-to the cofyns; & when they don a-ryse wel, take hem out, & serue hem forth.

Translation:

15. Doucetes Take cream a good cupful, and put it in a strainer; then take yolks of eggs and put thereto, and a little milk; then strain it through a strainer into a bowl, then take sugar enough, and put thereto, or else honey for default of sugar, then color it with saffron; then take thin coffins (pie shells), and put in the oven empty, and let them be hardened; then take a dish fastened on the peel's end (pizza paddle); and pour thine comade (mixture) into the dish, and from the dish into the coffins; and when they do rise well, take them out and serve them forth.

Gervase Markham’s Countrey Contentments, or The English Huswife (1623)

To bake an excellent Custard or Dowset; you shall take good store of [Single illegible lettergges], and putting away one quarter of the whites, beate them exceeding well in a bason, and then mixe with them the sweetest and thickest creame you can get, for if it be any thing thinne, the Custard will be wheyish; then season it with salt, sugar, cinamon, cloues, mace, and a little Nutmegge; which done raise your coffins of good tough wheate paste, being the second sort before spoke of, and if you please raise it in pretty workes, or angular formes, which you may doe by fixing the vp|per part of the crust to the nether with the yelks of egges: then when the coffins are ready, strow the bottomes a good thicknesse ouer with Currants and Sugar; then [Single illegible letteret] them into the Ouen, and fill them vp with the confecti|on before blended, and so drawing them, adorne all the toppes with Carraway Cumfets, and the slices of Dates prickt right vp, and so serue them vp to the table.