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Finger Pudding
Blanch and peel six ounces of almonds, and pound them in a mortar, adding by degrees one gill of milk. Beat up to a cream six egg-yolks with six ounces of castor sugar. When sufficiently beaten add to it the almond milk, with one tea-spoonful of ground cinnamon, one tea-spoonful of grated lemon-rind, and a pinch of ground cloves. Whisk the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth, melt three ounces of butter, and stir both alternately, in small quantities, into the above mixture. Lastly, add two ounces of crushed finger biscuits. Three-parts fill a well-buttered mould. Steam this in the usual way for about an hour, turn out on a hot dish, and serve at once, along with a suitable sweet sauce (see SWEET SAUCE FOR PUDDINGS). Probable cost, 2s.
A steamed almond-and-egg pudding, closer to a baked custard sponge than to a suet pudding. The hinge is the folding: six whipped whites are all that lifts it, so treat the final stage as folding rather than the "stir" the text asks for.
- GillIn an English book of this period a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, about 5 fl oz or 150 ml. Add it to the almonds slowly, a spoonful at a time, or the paste will not emulsify into a smooth milk.
- Pounding the almondsSix ounces (170 g) of blanched almonds can be ground in a food processor, pulsed with a little of the milk to keep them from turning oily. Ready-ground almonds work but give a paler, less fragrant pudding; blanch and grind whole ones if you can.
- Castor sugarCaster or superfine sugar, 170 g. It dissolves into the yolks quickly, which is why it is specified; granulated will do if you beat longer.
- Finger biscuitsDry sponge fingers, the boudoir-biscuit sort sold for tea, rather than a soft ladyfinger or a shortbread; Italian savoiardi are the closest thing on a modern shelf. Two ounces is about 55 g, crushed to coarse crumbs.
- Butter and whites, alternatelyThe melted butter should be warm but not hot, or it will slacken the whites on contact. Add butter and whites in three or four turns each, folding with a spatula and stopping the moment no streaks remain.
- Filling the mouldA 1.5 litre (2½ pint) mould or basin, buttered heavily, filled only three-quarters full — the mixture rises and then settles as it cools.
- "Steam in the usual way"Cover the mould with buttered paper or foil, tied or crimped down, and set it on a trivet in a pan of simmering water reaching halfway up the sides. Keep the water at a bare simmer for about an hour and top up with boiling water as needed; a skewer should come out clean.
- Turning outLet it stand five minutes before inverting, or the still-fragile crumb tears. Serve immediately, as instructed -- it deflates and dries as it stands.
- YieldSix to eight servings. The "probable cost, 2s." is Cassell's period price guide and carries no modern meaning.
Steamed puddings built on pounded almonds and beaten eggs rather than flour and suet run back through eighteenth-century English cookery to much older almond-milk confections, when ground almonds thinned with liquid stood in for dairy on fast days and in grand kitchens alike. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the late nineteenth century the almond milk here is made with cow's milk, a fossil of the older technique kept for flavour rather than necessity. The crushed sponge fingers might be read as the frugal touch in a household recipe: dry biscuits, the sort kept in a tin for tea, absorb moisture and give the pudding just enough structure to turn out of a mould. Cinnamon, clove and lemon peel are a combination often met with in English sweet cookery of the period, and the instruction to serve "at once" with a sweet sauce may suggest a dinner service in which the pudding travelled from the steamer to the table without pause.