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Ground Rice Cup Puddings
Mix two ounces of ground rice very smoothly with a little cold milk. Add half a pint of boiling milk, in which the rind of a lemon has been boiled, a lump of butter the size of an egg, and sugar to taste. Stir the mixture over the fire till it thickens, and when cold add three eggs, well beaten. Beat thoroughly for some minutes, then pour into buttered cups, or small moulds, and bake in a quick oven. Serve the puddings as soon as they are taken from the oven, first turning them out on a dish. Wine, or sweet sauce, may be sent to table with them. Time, about twenty minutes to bake. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian milk pudding built on a cooked rice-flour panada enriched with eggs, baked in individual moulds. It is closer to a firm baked custard than to nursery rice pudding.
- Let the base cool before the eggs go inThe recipe says "when cold add three eggs" and means it. Whisking eggs into a hot rice base will scramble them and leave grainy specks through the finished puddings.
- Ground riceThis is milled rice, traditionally a slightly coarser grind than modern rice flour though the two work much the same here; look for rice flour or the pack sold as "ground rice", and do not substitute the coarse pudding rice used for boiled rice pudding.
- MeasuresTwo ounces of ground rice is about 55 g, roughly a third of a cup. Half an imperial pint is 10 fl oz, or 1 1/4 US cups. A lump of butter the size of an egg is about 2 oz (55 g).
- A quick ovenUsually taken as about 400-450F (200-230C). Twenty minutes at that heat suits small moulds; test at fifteen, since the puddings should be just set and still trembling at the centre rather than dry.
- The lemon rindPare the zest off in strips with a peeler, avoiding the white pith, and let it steep in the scalded milk for ten minutes or so before straining it out. Boiling the whole rind hard will bring out bitterness.
- Cups and mouldsDariole moulds or ramekins of about 4 fl oz are the right size, buttered well and, if you want a clean turn-out, dusted with caster sugar. Stand them on a baking sheet for easier handling.
- Serve at onceThe puddings puff a little in the oven and sink as they cool, so turning them out and serving immediately is not politeness but structure. A sweet sauce, custard, or a fruit compote does the job the wine sauce once did.
- YieldFour to five moulds, as the original states; the "probable cost, 6d" is a period price note, not an instruction.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English milk pudding, when cheap imported rice, home-delivered milk and the closed range made a whole class of nursery and supper dishes possible. Ground rice Ŏ rice milled to flour Ŏ thickened faster and more smoothly than whole grains, and cookery writers of the period used it much as they used arrowroot, semolina and cornflour, thickening milk into a paste and then enriching it with butter and eggs. Baking the mixture in small buttered cups or dariole moulds and turning it out gave a plain, inexpensive pudding something of the appearance of an individually plated entremets, and the suggested wine sauce belongs to an older tradition of sweet sauces served with baked and boiled puddings. The costing in pence, given as a matter of course throughout the dictionary, suggests a readership of housekeepers budgeting family meals.