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Jubilee Pudding
Take half a pound of spongecake, rather stale than otherwise, and cut it into thin slices. Butter one side, and spread the other either with orange marmalade or apricot jam, then place the slices in layers in a plain round mould, buttered side downwards. Pour three-quarters of a pint of good custard over each layer, and repeat until the mould is full. Let the pudding soak for an hour, then bake in a quick oven, and turn out before serving. Wine or brandy sauce may be sent to table with it. Time, an hour and a quarter to bake. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian cabinet pudding built from stale sponge, jam and custard. The original oven direction is the one thing to disregard.
- The custard quantityRead as written, three-quarters of an imperial pint (15 fl oz) per layer would flood any mould many times over. Take it as the total for the pudding: about 2 cups of custard for 8 oz of sponge, which is roughly the ratio that gives a set but not dry result.
- "A quick oven" is wrong hereThe term is usually taken to mean somewhere in the region of 400-450F, and a baked custard at that heat risks curdling and weeping long before an hour and a quarter is up. Custard-set puddings of this type are better at 300-325F, ideally in a bain-marie, with the centre just trembling when done.
- Good custardNot tinned custard powder. A pouring custard of egg yolks, sugar and milk or single cream, cooked to nappe consistency, is what the book assumes; the eggs are what sets the pudding in the oven.
- The hour's soak mattersStale sponge needs the full hour to drink the custard evenly. Skip it and the top slices stay dry while the bottom collapses into paste.
- Buttered side downThe recipe gives no reason for the direction, and only the bottom layer's butter actually meets the mould; the butter more likely helps the slices hold their shape rather than dissolve into the custard. Butter the mould itself as well if you want a clean turn-out, and let the pudding stand a few minutes before inverting.
- Marmalade or apricotBoth are comparatively sharp preserves that offset the sweetness of the custard, though the book gives no reason for the choice. A sharp Seville marmalade, or a jam that has not been over-sweetened, suits the pudding.
- Wine or brandy sauceA thin sweet sauce of butter, sugar and fortified wine or brandy, served hot in a jug. Not a hard sauce, which would not pour over a turned-out pudding.
- Yield and costFour to five as stated. The recipe does not specify a mould size; something in the region of 1.5 to 2 pints will hold it. The 1s. 6d. is a period costing and does not convert meaningfully.
Structurally this is a cabinet or chancellor's pudding by another name, part of a large Victorian family of dishes designed around leftover sponge, biscuit or bread bound with custard and turned out of a mould. The name may glance at a royal jubilee, but no connection is documented, and Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery first appeared in the 1870s, before Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887. Stale cake was a routine by-product of a household that baked its own, and the marmalade layer belongs to the same economy: preserves made in quantity when fruit was cheap, then used through the year to give sweetness and sharpness to plain puddings.