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Queen of Puddings
One pint fine sifted bread-crumbs, one quart milk, one cup sugar, yolks of four eggs, a piece of butter the size of an egg (some add grated rind of lemon); bake until done-but do not allow to become watery-and spread with a layer of jelly. Whip whites of eggs to a stiff froth with five table-spoons sugar, and juice of one lemon, spread on the top and brown. Good with or without sauce, and very good cold. Make a hard sauce for it as follows: One cup very light brown sugar, half cup butter, half grated rind and the juice of one lemon; beat until very light. Vanilla may be used instead of the lemon.
Or, for cocoa-nut pudding, soak half cup dessicated cocoa-nut in boiling hot milk for half an hour or more, and add to the pudding, baking and finishing as above; or for orange pudding add a half dozen grated oranges. - Mrs. Prof. R. P. Kidder, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
A baked bread-crumb custard finished with jam and meringue. The single thing to watch is the custard: it must be baked gently and pulled the moment it sets, or it weeps and the whole pudding goes watery, exactly as the recipe warns.
- Bake it low and slowTreat the base as a custard, not a cake. A 325-350F oven for 45-60 minutes, until the centre is just set and barely trembling, keeps it from curdling and releasing liquid.
- A pint of crumbsMeasured by volume, that is 2 cups. Fine dry crumbs of that volume weigh roughly 8 oz; fresh soft crumbs about half that. Fresh crumbs already carry moisture and soak up less milk, so dry them out in a low oven first if yours are fresh.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. Stir it into the hot milk so it melts before the yolks go in.
- Soak before bakingThe instruction is implied rather than stated: pour the scalded milk over the crumbs and let them swell 15-20 minutes before adding yolks and sugar. Otherwise the crumbs float and the custard separates beneath them.
- Warm the jellyCold jelly tears the surface of a set custard. Beat it smooth or warm it briefly so it spreads in a thin even layer.
- The meringueFour whites to five tablespoons sugar is a soft meringue by modern standards. Spread it to the very edges of the dish so it seals, and brown at 350F for 12-15 minutes rather than under a fierce broiler, which colours the top before the inside cooks.
- Grated orangesThe variation means the pulp and zest of about six oranges, grated and pressed from the skins. Reduce the milk slightly to allow for the extra juice.
- Hard sauceCreamed butter and sugar, called hard because it is chilled firm and melts over the hot pudding. Use soft butter and beat until pale; light brown sugar will stay slightly grainy unless beaten a long time.
- YieldServes 8 in a 2-quart dish.
Queen of puddings is an English thrift dish elevated by decoration: stale bread, milk and eggs baked to a custard, then dressed with preserves and meringue so that it arrives at table looking like something far more expensive. Breadcrumb custards of this kind appear in British cookery well before the name does, and the title is generally traced to Victorian usage rather than to any documented royal occasion. Its presence in Buckeye Cookery (1877), contributed by a professor's wife in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, shows how thoroughly the dish had crossed into American home cooking, and the tacked-on cocoanut and orange variants are typical of the book's method: one reliable base recipe, with the contributor's own substitutions listed after it.