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Henriette Pudding, or Helena Pudding
Pour three-quarters of a pint of boiling milk over two ounces of finely-grated bread-crumbs. Soak for half an hour, then beat with a fork, add one table-spoonful of sugar, a piece of butter the size of a large egg, two ounces of finely-chopped candied lemon, and the yolks of three well-beaten eggs. Spread a little apricot or currant jam at the bottom of a pie-dish; at the last moment add the whites of two of the eggs well whisked, pour in the mixture, and bake in a gentle oven for half an hour. Sufficient for three or four persons. Probable cost, 1s.
A light baked bread custard, closer to a soufflé-edged queen of puddings than to a heavy steamed pudding. The whisked whites folded in at the last moment are what keep it from being stodgy.
- Gentle ovenCassell's gives no temperatures, but a "gentle" oven is a slow-to-moderate one, on the order of 300-325F (150-160C). Much higher and the egg custard curdles and weeps around the jam.
- Three-quarters of a pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 15 fl oz — roughly 1 3/4 US cups (about 425 ml) of whole milk.
- Butter the size of a large eggThe standard Victorian shorthand for about 2 oz (55 g). Softened, so it melts into the hot crumb mixture.
- BreadcrumbsTwo ounces of finely grated crumbs from stale, close-textured white bread; grated dry crumbs pack tight, so this is nearer half to three-quarters of a cup than a full one. Commercial dried breadcrumbs are denser still and will absorb the milk to a paste; grate your own.
- Candied lemonCandied lemon peel, chopped fine. Modern mixed peel is often coarse and harshly flavoured; whole candied peel chopped by hand is closer to what was intended. Two ounces is assertive but correct.
- The spare whiteOnly two whites go in; the third is left over. Reserve it for something else, or whisk all three — the pudding rises a little higher and eats slightly drier.
- Fold, don't beatThe whites go in at the last moment for a reason. Fold them through the cooled-to-warm crumb mixture and get it into the oven immediately, or the air collapses and the pudding bakes flat and dense.
- The dishA shallow pie-dish; with 15 fl oz of milk plus the other ingredients and the whisked whites the mixture comes to well over a pint, so allow about 2 pints capacity. Spread the jam thinly so it does not float up through the custard.
- Doneness and yieldHalf an hour gives a pudding just set with a slight tremble at the centre; a knife inserted an inch from the edge should come out clean. Serves three or four, and is best warm rather than hot.
Cassell's is full of puddings carrying personal names, Alexandra among them, reflecting a fashion for dedicating dishes to patronesses, royalty or simply to whoever the cook wished to flatter, with the result that the same recipe often travels under two names, as it does here. The dish itself belongs to the large English family of bread-crumb puddings, which turned stale loaf into something respectable at a small cost: the "probable cost, 1s." belongs to the book's convention of giving a price so a housekeeper could plan against her weekly allowance. What lifts this one above plain bread pudding is the candied lemon and the whisked whites, both markers of a pudding meant for the dining room rather than the nursery, and both cheap enough that a modest household could manage the effect without the expense of a proper soufflé.