Crumb a stale loaf of bread to make 2 cupfuls and soak in 1 quart of milk. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs with 1 cup of powdered sugar; add the bread, a small cup of raisins and the grated peel of a lemon. Mix all well. Put in a well-buttered pudding-dish and bake until brown. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt, sugar and a little lemon-juice spread on the top. Let get light brown in the oven. Serve with wine sauce.
A plain baked bread custard with a meringue lid. The original gives no temperature and no times, so both need supplying.
- Oven temperatureTreat this as a moderate oven, 350F. A custard baked hotter than that curdles at the edges before the centre sets.
- Baking timeExpect 45 to 60 minutes, possibly longer, in a buttered dish of 2 to 2 1/2 quarts, until the centre is just set and barely trembles. A water bath is not required but produces a smoother set.
- The meringueReturn the pudding to the oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 350F to colour the whites. Spread the meringue right to the edge of the dish so it seals and does not shrink back and weep.
- "Powdered sugar"In books of this period powdered sugar means finely milled granulated sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Ordinary granulated works; superfine dissolves faster into the yolks.
- Crumbs and soakingTwo cupfuls of crumb from a stale loaf means torn or grated soft interior, loosely packed, not dried breadcrumbs from a tin. Give it 20 to 30 minutes in the quart of milk so the bread swells fully.
- Whites for the toppingThe recipe gives no quantity of sugar for the meringue. One to two tablespoons per egg white, with the pinch of salt and a teaspoon of lemon juice, is a usual proportion.
- Wine saucePeriod wine sauces are usually either a stirred custard or a butter-sugar sauce flavoured with sherry or Madeira, warmed but not boiled. A thin sabayon of yolks, sugar and sweet wine whisked over hot water will serve the same purpose.
- YieldSix to eight servings. Best warm rather than hot, so the custard has time to firm.
Bread puddings of this kind are the thrift end of German home cooking, where stale white loaves became Semmelauflauf or Brotauflauf, with grated lemon peel and a handful of raisins to lift them. The meringue top arguably marks it as a less purely frugal dish, since it spends four egg whites on appearance alone. Its appearance in a day-by-day book of "all nations" reflects a common American publishing formula around the turn of the twentieth century, in which each date carried a dish tagged to a country, giving cooks a novelty menu without demanding unfamiliar ingredients. Nothing here would have been hard to find in an American kitchen of the time except perhaps the wine for the sauce.