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Albemarle Pudding
Take a quarter of a pound of sweet and three or four bitter almonds; blanch and pound them, being careful not to let them oil. Beat four eggs and add to them their weight in sifted sugar; whisk them over the fire till the sugar is melted, then pour them out at once; let them get cold, and then stir in the almond paste. Beat altogether to a froth, and while in this state put the mixture into a well-oiled tin, and bake immediately. Time to bake, half an hour. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost, 1s.
This is a baked almond soufflé-pudding of a familiar Victorian type, but it is built on an ingredient that is no longer sold as food and no longer considered safe to eat.
- The bitter almonds are the problemBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which the almond's own enzyme converts to hydrogen cyanide as soon as the kernel is crushed and wetted — precisely what blanching and pounding accomplish here. A raw bitter almond may carry several milligrams of releasable cyanide, and children are affected at doses adults would shrug off.
- Baking does not make it safeHalf an hour in the oven drives off some hydrogen cyanide, but the amount remaining is unpredictable and depends on the kernels, the grind and how enclosed the batter is. There is no way to judge from the recipe how much survives into the finished pudding.
- Why the quantity is not reassuring"Three or four" is an unmeasured count of a kernel that varied widely in strength between varieties and seasons. Recipes of this period commonly specified bitter almonds by count rather than by weight; there is no margin built into that instruction.
- Sale is now restrictedBitter almonds are not stocked by grocers in the UK or US and their sale for eating is restricted in many countries. Anything labelled bitter almond on a shop shelf today is almost certainly an extract, which is a different product with a different safety profile.
- If you want the dishUse a current recipe for a baked almond pudding or soufflé from a modern source rather than adapting this one.
- On the rest of the methodWorth reading for the technique alone: eggs whisked with their own weight in sugar over heat until the sugar dissolves, cooled, then beaten to a froth and baked at once. That is the genoise-style warm sabayon base, used here as a pudding rather than a cake.
Cassell's gives no source for the name, and "Albemarle" appears to have been borrowed in the way that titled names generally were, signalling gentility more than provenance. What is documented is the ingredient: bitter almonds, the kernels of a variety of Prunus dulcis, were a standard flavouring in British and European kitchens from the medieval period until well into the twentieth century, valued for the intense marzipan note that sweet almonds lack. The danger was known even then — poisonings were reported in the period, usually from almond-flavoured cordials or from children eating the kernels — but the doses used in cookery were small enough that the practice persisted. Benzaldehyde, the compound responsible for the flavour, was eventually synthesised and separated from the cyanide that accompanies it in nature, which is why the modern bottle of almond extract carries the taste of this pudding without its hazard.