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Ground Rice Pudding
Put a pint of milk into a saucepan, with half an inch of stick cinnamon, or the thin rind of a lemon, or two bay-leaves. Let it remain by the side of the fire till the flavour of the cinnamon, lemon, or laurel, is drawn out, then boil and strain. Mix with the milk two ounces of ground rice, moistened with a little cold milk, and stir over the fire till thick. Pour out, and, when cool, add two eggs, slightly beaten, and if liked half a wine-glassful of brandy. Bake in a well-buttered pie-dish, in a moderate oven. If baked too quickly, the pudding will be watery. Time, about three-quarters of an hour to bake. Probable cost, 5d., exclusive of the brandy. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A plain Victorian milk pudding thickened on the stove before baking, which gives it a smoother set than the whole-grain kind. Two details in the original do most of the work: the milk must cool before the eggs go in, and the oven must stay gentle.
- Ground riceA coarse rice flour, still sold under that name in Britain; modern rice flour is the nearest substitute, and the finer white rice flour gives a silkier texture than the coarser "cream of rice" style. Two ounces is about 6 tablespoons.
- Imperial pintCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so use 2 1/2 US cups of whole milk. Skimmed milk will set but tastes thin against the cinnamon and brandy.
- Moderate ovenAround 325-350F/160-175C. The warning about baking too quickly is the hinge of the recipe: too hot an oven tightens the egg and the pudding weeps. A roasting tin of hot water under or around the dish is cheap insurance.
- Cool the base"When cool" means genuinely below hand-hot before the beaten eggs go in, or they will scramble into threads in the hot starch. Stir them in off the heat and pour straight into the buttered dish.
- Bay leaves"Laurel" here means culinary bay, Laurus nobilis, the ordinary dried bay leaf. Two leaves infused in milk give an almond-like note that suits the dish; do not substitute ornamental cherry laurel, which is a different plant entirely.
- Wine-glassfulIn Victorian books this is roughly 2 fl oz, so half a glass is about 1 fl oz of brandy, or 2 tablespoons. Add it with the eggs.
- No sugarThe recipe as printed contains none, which is authentic to plain nursery puddings served with jam or stewed fruit. Most modern palates will want 1 to 2 oz (2 to 4 tablespoons) of sugar stirred into the hot thickened milk.
- Yield and finishThree or four portions; a pie dish of about 1 1/2 to 2 pints. Grated nutmeg over the surface before baking is a common English finish, and the pudding is best eaten warm rather than hot from the oven.
Ground rice puddings sit slightly apart from the more familiar baked rice pudding of whole grains left for hours in a slow oven. Rice flour thickens quickly, so the dish belonged to the class of quick, cheap, digestible puddings that Victorian household books recommended for children, invalids and small suppers, and the stated cost of fivepence marks it as one of the economical entries Cassell's included alongside far grander sweets. By the time this dictionary was compiled rice flour was a standard grocer's item used for puddings, thickening sauces and shortbread-like biscuits. The three flavourings offered here cinnamon, lemon peel, bay leaf are among the flavourings often used for infusing milk in English cookery of the period; where a pronounced bitter-almond character was wanted, it came not from culinary bay but from cherry laurel leaves, or else from bitter almonds or ratafia.