Cream Pudding

A baked custard given a bread-crumb lining instead of pastry. The original assumes you know what a custard looks like when it is done and how hot your oven should be; both need saying.

• Oven temperatureNo temperature is given; the book was written for wood and coal ranges. Treat it as a slow to moderate oven, around 325F, and expect roughly 35 to 45 minutes. Custard baked much hotter tends to curdle and weep, so keep the heat gentle.
• Measure the sugarThree ounces is a weight, roughly 6 tablespoons or a scant half cup of granulated sugar. Weigh it if you can; the pudding is only lightly sweet by design.
• A pint of creamTwo cups. Period "cream" was skimmed by hand and varied a great deal in richness; much of it was thinner than today's heavy cream. Heavy cream will set very rich and dense, so half heavy cream and half whole milk is a safer approximation.
• The hinge: do not overbeat the whitesThe hinge: the whites -- The original says "well-beaten whites," folded in lightly. Folded whites give the pudding lift but also make it prone to souffle-style rise and collapse; if you want a steadier set, stop at soft peaks and fold only until just combined.
• The crumb crustStale bread crumbs, not dried packaged crumbs, buttered generously into the plate. Butter the pie-plate first so the crumbs adhere. They will never crisp like pastry; they soak up custard and form a soft, bready floor.
• Water bathNot mentioned in the original but worth using. Set the pie-plate in a larger pan with an inch of hot water to keep the edges from setting long before the centre does.
• DonenessPull it when the outer two inches are set and the middle still trembles as a single mass. Carryover heat finishes the centre. A knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean.
• YieldEnough for a pie-plate of about 9 inches, giving six modest servings. Good warm or cold; it will not slice cleanly like a pie.