Tie together six or eight peach leaves, and boil them in a quart
of milk with a large stick of cinnamon broken up. If you cannot
procure peach leaves, substitute a handful of peach-kernels or
bitter almonds, or a vanilla bean split in pieces. When it has
boiled hard, strain the milk and set it away to cool. Beat very
light eight eggs, and stir them by degrees into the milk when it
is quite cold, (if warm, the eggs will curdle it, and cause whey
at the bottom,) and add gradually a quarter of a pound of sugar.
Fill your cups with it; set them in a Dutch-oven, and pour round
them boiling water sufficient to reach nearly to the tops of the
cups. Put hot coals under the oven and on the lid, (which must be
previously heated by standing it up before a hot fire,) and bake
the custards about twenty minutes. Send them to table cold, with
nutmeg grated over each. Or you may bake the whole in one large
dish.