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Cherry Pudding, Steamed
Line a round cake-tin with thickly greased paper, to come above the top. Cut some glace cherries and pineapple in slices, and place alternate rows of cherries and pineapple round the tin, pressing them firmly down. Fill up the inside with broken pieces of any plain cake, such as sponge. Do not pack too closely. Make a custard with three eggs, half a pint of milk, one ounce of castor sugar, and a few drops of vanilla. Strain the custard on to the cakes. Place the tin in a saucepan, with boiling water coming half way up. Cover with a piece of greased paper, and steam three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. for six portions.
A cabinet-pudding in all but name: stale sponge, glacé fruit and a plain baked custard, cooked in a water bath on the hob. The only thing that can spoil it is heat.
- Keep the water at a bare trembleThe hinge of the dish. Custard sets at around 170-180F; if the water in the saucepan boils hard the eggs curdle and the pudding turns watery and pitted. Bring the water to the boil, slide in the tin, then drop the heat so it barely shivers for the full three-quarters of an hour.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. With three whole eggs that gives a firm custard that will turn out of the tin; a US half-pint of 8 fl oz would set even firmer.
- Castor sugarSuperfine sugar. One ounce is about 2 tablespoons, which is restrained by modern standards, but the glacé fruit carries most of the sweetness.
- Glacé cherries and pineappleCandied fruit in heavy syrup, still sold for baking. Rinse and dry the pieces or the syrup clouds the custard and the fruit slides down the sides of the tin.
- The tin and the paperA round cake tin here means a solid-based tin, not a loose-bottomed or springform one, which will leak. Grease it, line it with buttered paper standing proud of the rim, and cover with a second buttered paper to keep condensation off the surface. A 1 to 1.5 pint / 570-850 ml capacity suits these quantities.
- Do not pack too closelyWorth taking literally. The cake must have room to drink the custard; pressed down tight it stays dry in the middle and the custard sits in a layer at the bottom.
- Testing and turning outDone when a skewer at the centre comes out clean and the pudding is just set to the touch. Rest it five minutes before inverting, or it will slump.
- ServingSix portions, as stated. A thin pouring custard or a warm apricot sauce would not be out of place.
This is a version of cabinet pudding, one of the great thrift dishes of the Victorian and Edwardian kitchen: leftover sponge or plain cake, bound with a custard and steamed, dressed up at the last with a lining of glacé fruit so it emerges looking deliberate rather than salvaged. The name is often traced to the aristocratic dinner table rather than any actual cabinet, and the pudding travels under several aliases — chancellor's pudding, diplomat pudding — with the fruit varying between dried, candied and none at all. Cassell's places it among the steamed puddings; steaming was in any case the standard hob-top method in households where oven space was contested and fuel was counted, and the same principle keeps the custard from overheating. The costing of 1s. 6d. for six portions is a reminder of what these dictionaries were for: they were bought by managers of households, and a recipe was expected to declare its price alongside its method.