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Pudding Sauce (Whipped cream flavored)
Whipped cream flavored with extract of orange or lemon, and sweetened, makes a very nice sauce.
TO MAKE EXTRACT OF ORANGE OR LEMON.
Cut the peels in thin strips, put them in a large bottle and fill with alcohol. It will be ready for use in a few days, and is much better than that you buy.
Two recipes in one entry: a whipped-cream pudding sauce, and the citrus extract that flavors it. The extract wants a week or two before it earns its keep, so start it first.
- "Alcohol" means drinking alcoholIn a period kitchen book this is potable spirit — use vodka (80-100 proof) or a neutral grain spirit. Never rubbing alcohol, denatured alcohol, or anything sold in a hardware or drug store; those contain methanol or isopropanol and are poisonous.
- Zest only, no pith"Thin strips" is the whole instruction and the whole trick. Peel with a vegetable peeler so the strips are colored on one side and white on none; the white pith turns the extract bitter as it steeps.
- Steeping time"A few days" gives a pale, thin extract. Two weeks in a closed jar out of the light gives something with more aroma, and once strained it keeps very well. The original gives no proportions; two or three oranges' worth of peel to a cup of spirit is a workable modern ratio.
- Proportions for the sauceThe original gives none. For a cup of heavy cream, work with 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the extract, tasting as you go — homemade extract varies in strength far more than the bottled kind.
- Choosing creamLook for heavy cream or heavy whipping cream at 36% fat or better. Ultra-pasteurized cream whips but breaks down faster; standard pasteurized holds its body longer, which matters for a sauce meant to sit beside a hot pudding.
- Sugar and flavoring go in lateWhip to soft peaks first, then add the sugar and extract and finish; adding the liquid extract at the start may slow the whip slightly. Confectioners' sugar instead of granulated gives a smoother sauce and a little more stability.
- Don't overwhipStop while the cream still slumps slightly off the spoon. This is a sauce, not a topping — it should pool around the pudding rather than stand up in it.
- Yield and holdingA cup of cream doubles to about two cups whipped, enough for six servings. Whip within an hour of serving and keep it cold; on a warm pudding it will begin to melt at once, which is part of the point.
Home-infused citrus extract was routine in the nineteenth-century pantry for a plain economic reason: commercial "lemon essence" had a poor reputation for adulteration — lemon oil was commonly cut with cheaper lemongrass oil or citral, or simply sold weak — so the confident line that homemade "is much better than that you buy" may well reflect experience rather than pride. Peel steeped in spirit is among the oldest forms of flavoring extract, the same principle behind orange liqueurs and flavored brandies. The sauce itself belongs to a large family of Victorian pudding sauces — hard sauce, foamy sauce, wine sauce — served over boiled and steamed puddings whose plainness was the whole reason a sauce was needed. This is among the least laborious of them: no cooking, no eggs, nothing to curdle.