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CHEESE PUDDING (another way)
Take half a pound of finely-grated cheese, and mix it with the well-beaten yolks of five eggs; add two ounces of fresh butter beaten to a cream, and a cupful of new milk, and last of all, put in the white of an egg whisked to a solid froth. Line the edges of a dish with puff paste, well butter the inside, pour in the mixture, and bake in a good oven. Before serving, strew a little grated Parmesan cheese over the pudding. Time to bake, half an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A baked cheese custard set in a pastry-edged dish — closer to a crustless quiche than to anything a modern cook would call pudding. The proportions are sound; only the vocabulary and the oven need translating.
- "A good oven"A brisk but not fierce oven; roughly 375-400F (190-200C) is a reasonable modern reading, though the book gives no temperatures. Anything hotter risks curdling the egg and cheese before the centre sets.
- The cheeseHalf a pound is 225g. No cheese is named; a firm English cheese such as Cheddar or Cheshire suits the method. Grate it finely as directed; coarse shreds shed fat and leave the custard greasy.
- "New milk"Fresh, unskimmed milk straight from the dairy — whole milk is the equivalent. A cupful here is about 8 fl oz (240ml); the book's cup is not a precise measure, so err on the smaller side or the custard will be loose.
- Five yolks, one whiteOnly one of the five whites goes back in, whipped. The rest are surplus — keep them for meringue or an omelette rather than adding them here, or the texture turns spongy instead of creamy.
- Folding the frothAdd the whisked white last and fold, do not stir. Its job is to lift a very rich mixture; beaten flat, the pudding bakes dense.
- Lining the edges onlyThe puff paste is a border round the rim of the dish, not a full crust. Butter the exposed inside of the dish well, as instructed — cheese custard grips earthenware hard.
- Timing and donenessHalf an hour is about right for a shallow dish. Take it out when the centre is just set with a slight wobble; carried past that point the eggs weep and the cheese goes stringy.
- ServingThe book gives it as sufficient for four or five persons, as a savoury course. The Parmesan goes on after baking, off the heat.
Cheese puddings of this kind sat in the Victorian repertoire as a savoury — the small hot dish served after the sweet course at dinner, or at supper, a place also filled by anchovy toast and Welsh rarebit. Cassell's dictionaries of cookery, enormous alphabetical compendia of the later nineteenth century, characteristically give several routes to the same dish, hence "another way"; each is priced, here at 1s. 3d.