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Ginger Souffle Pudding
Mix smoothly over the fire one ounce of butter and one ounce of flour. Add the well-beaten yolks of two eggs and a gill of milk. Beat to a smooth batter; pour the mixture into a basin, and stir into it one ounce of preserved ginger, cut into thin slices, with a tea-spoonful of ginger syrup. Just before cooking, add the whites of the eggs, beaten to a firm froth. Butter a mould rather thickly. Ornament the inside in any pretty fanciful way with lemon, citron, or dried fruit, cut into shapes; pour in the batter, place a piece of buttered paper over the top, and steam gently, until it feels firm in the centre. Turn out, and serve with ginger sauce (see GINGER SAUCE). Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for three persons.
A steamed soufflé pudding built on a panada — a butter-and-flour paste enriched with yolks and lightened with whipped whites. It is a small, quick dessert rather than a heavy suet pudding, and it lives or dies on how gently it is cooked.
- The hinge: gentle steamThe water under the mould should barely tremble, never boil hard. A rolling boil drives the aerated batter up and then collapses it, leaving a rubbery seam at the base.
- A gillIn this British book a gill is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml); an American gill is 4 fl oz. Either will work here, though the smaller measure should give a slightly firmer pudding.
- "Mix smoothly over the fire"This is a roux cooked to a paste, not browned. Cook the butter and flour together a minute over low heat, then beat in the milk before the yolks so the eggs do not scramble; the original adds both together, presumably with the pan drawn off the direct fire.
- Preserved gingerStem ginger in syrup, sold in jars, is the direct descendant and needs no substitution. Crystallised ginger will do if you rinse off the sugar coating and use a spoonful of golden syrup for the "ginger syrup".
- Folding the whites"Add the whites" means fold, not beat in. Loosen the batter with a spoonful of the froth first, then fold the rest through in two additions and get it into the mould immediately.
- The mould and the paperA 1-pint (600 ml) charlotte mould or pudding basin, buttered thickly and filled no more than two-thirds. Buttered paper is baking parchment, pleated across the centre to allow rise, tied or foiled down at the rim to keep condensation off the top.
- TimingNo time is given; the recipe relies on a doneness cue instead. Expect roughly 40 to 45 minutes with water coming halfway up the mould; the pudding is done when the centre feels firm and springs back. Rest it five minutes before turning out or the decoration tears away.
- The ornamentCitron is candied citron peel, still sold at Christmas. Cut shapes and press them into the buttered mould before the batter goes in — they set into the surface and appear on the outside when turned out.
- YieldThree small servings, as stated, and best eaten within minutes of unmoulding. Sixpence was the estimated cost; the book quotes a probable cost for most of its entries.
Soufflé puddings occupy a middle ground that late-Victorian cookery took seriously: lighter and more fashionable than boiled suet puddings, but steamed in a mould rather than baked and rushed to table like a true soufflé. The ginger here is preserved ginger in syrup, an import largely from Canton that reached British grocers in decorated stoneware jars through the nineteenth century — expensive enough to be a treat, cheap enough that an ounce could be spared for a pudding for three. The habit of quoting a "probable cost" and a number of persons served, seen here at sixpence, points to the book's audience: households keeping accounts, cooking to a budget, and wanting a dish that looked more elaborate than its outlay.