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Her Majesty's Pudding
Flavour half a pint of cream or new milk with half an ounce of pounded almonds, or if preferred, a little lemon or ratafia flavouring. Simmer gently, and when lukewarm, pour the milk gradually over two well-beaten eggs. Stir the mixture over the fire for a minute or two, until it begins to thicken, then take it off and sweeten it, and when quite cool pour it into a buttered mould which has been lined with a small spongecake, previously sliced and soaked in sherry. Place a cover on the mould and steam the pudding. When done enough, let it stand a minute or two before turning it out, and ornament with crystallised fruit of different colours. Time, three-quarters of an hour to steam. Probable cost, 8d., if made with milk. Sufficient for two persons.
A steamed sherry-soaked sponge and custard pudding, small enough to make in a single 2-cup mould. The custard is the whole dish, so temperature control matters more than anything else here.
- The measurementsHalf a pint in an English book of this period is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or about 1¼ cups. Half an ounce of pounded almonds is roughly 2 tablespoons of ground almonds.
- "New milk"Simply fresh whole milk, as opposed to milk that had stood and been skimmed. The recipe allows either; with cream the pudding is richer.
- Tempering is the hingePour the warm milk into the beaten eggs in a thin stream while whisking, then return it to low heat only until it thickens to coat a spoon, around 175F. Past 180F the eggs curdle and no amount of steaming will bring the custard back.
- Ratafia flavouringHistorically an almond- or apricot-kernel essence, close to what is sold now as almond extract. A few drops is plenty; it overwhelms a pudding this size.
- Straining and steamingStrain the custard through a sieve before it goes into the mould to catch any set egg and the almond grounds. Cover the mould tightly with buttered paper or foil, stand it on a trivet in a pan of barely simmering water reaching halfway up, and keep the water at a bare tremble for the stated 45 minutes. A hard boil will puff and pit the custard.
- Judging it doneThe pudding should be just set with a slight wobble at the centre; an instant-read thermometer will show about 175-180F. The couple of minutes' rest before unmoulding lets it firm enough to hold its shape.
- The sponge liningSlice a small plain sponge or a few trimmed slices of pound cake thin and press it against the buttered mould. The recipe says the slices are soaked in sherry; soaked to the point of sogginess they collapse and the pudding will not turn out cleanly, so err on the light side.
- YieldAs stated, two servings. It scales up, but a larger mould needs proportionally longer steaming and the same low water temperature.
Puddings named for Queen Victoria were a standing convention of Victorian and Edwardian cookery books, and "Her Majesty's" here signals genre rather than any documented royal connection: a small, elegant, moulded custard finished with coloured crystallised fruit, meant to look like confectionery on a modest table. The dish sits in the same family as charlotte russe and cabinet pudding, all built on the same trick of lining a mould with sponge or biscuit soaked in sweet wine and filling it with a stirred custard. The presence of a costing, 8d., is typical of Cassell's, which was written for households keeping close accounts, and the recipe is noted as serving two.