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Peach Cottage Pudding
1/4 cup Cottolene. 1 cup sugar. 1 egg. 1/2 cup milk. 2 cups pastry flour. 4 teaspoons baking powder. 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon almond extract.
Fresh peaches sliced.
PROCESS: Cream Cottolene, add sugar gradually, stirring constantly; add egg well beaten. Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt; add to first mixture alternately with milk. Add extract and beat thoroughly. Turn into a well-greased shallow pan, and bake twenty-five minutes in a moderate oven. Cut in three-inch squares; pile thinly-sliced fresh peaches on top of each portion, sprinkle thickly with powdered sugar and serve with rich cream.
A plain one-egg cake cut into squares and topped with raw peaches — quick to assemble, but the ingredient list carries a brand name that vanished a century ago.
- CottoleneA branded shortening of cottonseed oil stiffened with beef suet, sold by N. K. Fairbank & Co. Substitute an equal measure of butter or vegetable shortening; butter gives better flavour, shortening a slightly softer crumb.
- Moderate oven350F. In a shallow pan the cake is done at 25 minutes when a skewer comes out clean and the edges have pulled from the sides.
- Pan size"A shallow pan" cut into three-inch squares suggests something like a 9-inch square pan, which would give nine portions. A batter this size in a deeper pan will need longer and will not cut as cleanly.
- Baking powderFour teaspoons to two cups of flour is heavy by current standards; period powders were less reliable and often single-acting. Two to two and a half teaspoons of modern double-acting powder will lift this batter without the metallic aftertaste.
- Pastry flourLow-protein soft wheat flour, still sold but not universal. All-purpose works; for a closer match, replace two tablespoons of each cup with cornstarch.
- Almond extractA quarter teaspoon is the whole point of the flavouring and pairs with the peaches. Measure it rather than pouring free-hand.
- Peaches and sugarSlice the peaches shortly before serving and sprinkle with the powdered sugar (confectioners' sugar) only at the table; sugared fruit weeps quickly and will soak the cake.
- Rich creamUnwhipped heavy cream, poured over each square. Do not whip it — the dish depends on the cream running into the crumb.
52 Sunday Dinners (1913) was written by Elizabeth O. Hiller and issued by N. K. Fairbank & Co. to promote Cottolene, their cottonseed-oil shortening, which is why the fat in the recipes is named rather than described. Cottonseed oil was a byproduct of the Southern cotton industry that food manufacturers spent the 1880s and 1890s turning into a cheap rival to lard, and cookbooks given away or sold at low cost were the main vehicle for persuading cooks to switch. The pudding itself is older than the shortening: cottage pudding was a standard American name through the nineteenth century for a plain, unfrosted cake served in squares with a sauce, fruit or cream, the sort of dessert assembled from pantry staples rather than bought from a bakery. With peaches at their peak, no cooked sauce is needed at all.