Welsh Rarebit

## Book Reference

Devil's Food Cake Murder

If you don’t have a toaster, DO NOT preheat the oven quite yet. If you do have a toaster, preheat the oven to
450 degrees F. (a very hot oven), rack in the middle position.

### Hannah’s 1st Note

*I usually double this recipe so that it will serve 4 people, even when I make it for only 2 people. Everybody in my family wants another slice*!

### Ingredients

* 2 large slices good white bread (I used egg bread from the deli—you could also use thick-sliced French toast bread)
* 4 large eggs
* 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
* 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
* Tabasco or your favorite hot pepper sauce (I used "Slap Ya Mama" made by Walker & Sons)
* salt
* freshly ground black pepper
* 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

### Directions

* Toast the bread in your toaster until it’s golden brown. If you don’t have a toaster, lay the bread flat on your broiler pan and toast the first side, watching carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn. When it’s golden brown, flip it over and toast the other side.
* Remove the bread from the toaster (or the broiler pan) immediately. If you used the broiler, shut it off and set the oven to bake at 450 degrees F., rack in the middle position. (Your oven will already be very close to that temperature if you used the broiler.)
* Find a baking pan that will hold both slices of bread comfortably.
* Spray it with Pam or another nonstick baking spray. (I use an 8-inch square pan unless I double the recipe. Then I use a half steam table disposable foil pan placed on a cookie sheet to support the bottom.)
* Place the toast in the bottom of the baking pan. Separate the eggs into whites and yolks.
* Here’s how to do it for this recipe:
	+ Crack egg #1, and pull the shell into two parts. Do a little juggling to drain off the white part into a medium-sized bowl. Dump the yolk that’s left in the shell into another medium-sized bowl.
	+ Repeat this process for egg #2 and egg #3.
	+ Get out a little refrigerator container, the kind that will hold one egg yolk.
	+ Crack egg #4, separate the white part into the bowl with the other white parts, and dump the yolk into the refrigerator container so that you can add it to your scrambled eggs in the morning.
	+ Put the covered container in the refrigerator. You now have two medium-sized bowls on the counter, one containing 3 egg yolks, the other containing 4 egg whites.
* Beat the three egg yolks together until they’re well mixed.
* Add the grated cheddar cheese to the egg yolks, and mix everything up with a fork.
* Mix in the dry mustard, stirring until it’s incorporated.
* Stir in the hot pepper sauce. Add a generous sprinkle of salt and mix it in.
* Sprinkle in some freshly ground pepper and stir well.
* Set the bowl aside on the counter.
* Add the cream of tartar to the bowl with the egg whites and stir it in. It’ll help the egg whites whip up faster and stiffer.
* Whip the 4 egg whites until they stand up in stiff peaks. You can use an electric mixer or do this by hand with a whisk. (Doing it by hand takes some time and muscle—it’s a lot easier with a mixer.)
* Add a large spoonful of stiff egg whites to the yolks and cheese mixture, stirring it in until it’s well combined. That’s called “tempering.”
* Add the rest of the egg whites to the cheese mixture. Fold them in gently with a rubber spatula, trying to keep as much volume and air as you can in the mixture.
	+ **Hannah’s 2nd Note:** *To fold in the egg whites, simply place the side of the rubber spatula blade in the center of the bowl, dig it all the way down to the bottom, and then bring it toward you until it touches the side of the bowl nearest you. Keeping the rubber blade flat so that you lift as much of the mixture as possible, move the spatula up the side of the bowl, and flip the mixture you carried on the rubber blade in the center on top. Now give a bowl a little turn on the counter, and do the same thing all over again. It’s like carefully stirring with the flat of your spatula. Do this until there are no big clumps of egg white left. There may be little clumps, but that’s perfectly all right. (You just made a soufflé. It was easy, wasn’t it?)*
* Gently spoon the resulting mixture over the toast in the baking pan.
* Bake at 450 degrees F. for 10 minutes, or until your Welsh Rarebit has browned and risen.

**Yield**: 2 extremely tasty servings.

### Hannah’s 3rd Note:

*I made this once at Andrea’s house for Andrea, Bill, Tracey, and me. (That was before Bethie was born.) Tracey thought I was calling it Welsh Rabbit and she didn’t want to eat it because she liked bunnies. I had to make her another piece just to show her that there weren’t any bunnies in it.*

## Conversion Charts

See Baking Conversion Chart for non-USA baking conversions.