Dip enough macaroons in wine to line the pudding-dish; cover with sweetened strawberries. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs with sugar and flavor with vanilla; pour over the strawberries; put in the oven to bake. Beat the whites to a stiff froth with some pulverized sugar; put on top of the pudding and let brown. Serve cold.
A one-line recipe of the kind these daily-dish books specialised in: it assumes the cook already knows how a baked custard behaves. The gaps are worth filling before you start.
- The missing liquidFour yolks and sugar alone will set into a thick curd, not a custard, so some milk or thin cream is presumably assumed. The original does not say, so treat the quantity as ambiguous; a custard of roughly 4 yolks, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 cups milk or half-and-half poured over the fruit is one workable reading.
- Which macaroonsMost likely almond, not coconut: the almond-paste macaroon of this period was a crisp biscuit, close to today's amaretti, though coconut versions also existed. Dry, hard ones are what you want here, since they must absorb wine without collapsing.
- The wineA sweet fortified wine is the likeliest intention -- sherry, Madeira, Marsala -- though the recipe says only "wine." Dip briefly, a second or two per side; soaked through, the biscuits turn to paste and the base goes soggy.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given, as was usual in books of this kind before thermostatic ovens were standard. A moderate oven, around 325F, suits a custard; much higher and the yolks curdle and weep around the edge of the dish.
- Water bathThe recipe omits it, but a shallow custard over fruit sets far more evenly standing in a pan of hot water. Reckon 30 to 40 minutes, until the centre wobbles as a whole rather than rippling.
- StrawberriesHull and halve, and sugar them lightly no more than an hour ahead. Left longer they flood the dish and the custard will not set above the pool of juice.
- The meringueFour whites to about 1/2 cup superfine or icing sugar, beaten stiff and glossy. Return to the oven at 350F for 10 to 15 minutes, just until the peaks colour " longer and it turns to dry foam that shatters when you spoon it.
- Serve coldCool to room temperature, then chill. Meringue on a chilled custard begins to bead after several hours, so make it the day you eat it. The recipe gives no yield; a dish this size will stretch to about six.
Books like this one sold a dish a day, one for every date on the calendar, each tagged with a nationality that was more atmosphere than geography " a Spanish canap" one day, a Frenchcpudding the next. This particular pudding sits in a long European family of desserts built on wine-soaked biscuit: the same instinct behind the English trifle, the Italian zuppa inglese, and the charlotte moulds lined with ladyfingers that French cooks made fashionable in the nineteenth century. The macaroon here is doing the work of a sponge, and the meringue lid is a familiar finish for a baked custard once the yolks had been used up " a thrifty habit that predates the electric mixer and explains why so many recipes of the era end with the whites beaten stiff and browned on top. Strawberries date it to the season, at the tail end of the fruit's short pre-refrigeration window.