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Guernsey Pudding
Boil three ounces of rice in a pint of new milk, with an inch of cinnamon, the thin rind of a lemon, and three cloves, till it can be beaten to a pulp. Sweeten it, take out the spices and lemon-rind, and mix with it some apple marmalade, made by boiling six large apples, peeled and quartered, with four table-spoonfuls of sherry. When cool, mix the apples with the rice, sweeten according to taste, and add the whites of five eggs, whisked to a firm froth. Beat all together for ten minutes, pour the mixture into a buttered pie-dish, and bake for an hour and a quarter. Make a pint of custard with the yolks of the eggs, and send it to table cold with the pudding. Probable cost, 1s. 3d., exclusive of the wine. Sufficient for six persons.
A Victorian rice-and-apple pudding lightened with beaten whites, served with the leftover yolks turned into a cold pouring custard. Nothing here is difficult, but two instructions need translating and one needs ignoring.
- Beat, or foldTen minutes of beating after the whites go in would knock out every bubble you have just whisked in. Fold the firm whites into the cooled rice and apple in three additions with a large spoon, working only until no white streaks remain.
- Oven heatCassell's leaves the oven unspecified, as it usually does. Treat this as a moderate oven, 325-350F, for the stated hour and a quarter; the pudding should be set and lightly coloured, with a slight wobble at the centre.
- New milkFresh whole milk, unskimmed. Full-fat milk is the equivalent; the pint is an imperial pint, 20 fl oz, which is a scant 2 1/2 US cups.
- The riceThree ounces is about 1/2 cup of short-grain pudding rice. Round Italian or Spanish rice works; long-grain is much less likely to break down to a pulp.
- Apple marmaladeNineteenth-century "marmalade" simply means fruit boiled to a thick pulp, not a preserve. Six large apples with only four tablespoons of sherry as liquid will catch unless you use a heavy pan, a lid and low heat, stirring often; cook until the quarters collapse, then beat smooth and let the mixture dry out a little if it looks wet.
- AromaticsAn inch of cinnamon stick, three whole cloves, and lemon rind pared thin with a peeler so no white pith goes in. All three come out before the apple is added; a small piece of muslin or a tea infuser saves fishing.
- The custardA pint of custard, made with milk, the five yolks and sugar, stirred over low heat until it coats a spoon at around 175-180F. Do not let it approach a simmer or it will scramble; strain it and chill it, since it goes to table cold.
- Yield and costSix servings, as stated. The "1s. 3d." is the household price in the 1870s-80s and is worth reading as a period detail rather than a guide.
Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery gathers hundreds of these named puddings, most of them regional in label only, and Guernsey Pudding belongs to a family of rice-and-fruit baked puddings that filled the sweet course in middle-class Victorian households. The name is generally taken as a nod to the Channel Island's dairy herds: Guernsey milk was, and is, notably rich in butterfat, and the recipe calls for "new milk" boiled with rice. Whether the recipe has any real connection to the island is another matter, and the book offers no claim of one. What the recipe does document precisely is the Victorian habit of using a set of eggs twice over: the whites lift the pudding, the yolks become the cold custard poured beside it, and nothing is thrown away. The four spoonfuls of sherry sit outside the costing line, which is given as exclusive of the wine.