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Lemon Patties
Rub the rind of a fresh lemon with three ounces of loaf sugar. Crush it to powder, and mix it with the finely-grated crumb of a penny loaf. Pour over the mixture a quarter of a pint of boiling milk, and soak for half an hour. At the end of that time stir in two ounces of clarified butter and two well-beaten eggs. Butter some small cups, rather more than half fill them with the mixture, and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. When done, turn the patties out on a hot dish, and send wine sauce to table with them. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for half a dozen patties.
A small baked bread-crumb pudding, closer to a sweet soufflé-less custard than anything we would now call a patty. The technique that carries it is the first line.
- Rub the sugar on the lemonDragging sugar lumps across the zest strips the oil out of the peel far more effectively than grating. If you use granulated sugar instead, rub the zest into it with your fingertips until the sugar is damp and fragrant, then use it all.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in cones or pressed lumps, to be crushed as directed. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing, 3 oz being about 6 tablespoons.
- A penny loafA small white loaf, a common cheap unit of bread in Victorian shops, though its size varied. Take it as a few ounces of crumb -- something like 2 cups of soft fresh crumbs, grated not dried.
- A quarter of a pintImperial measure, so 5 fl oz or about 145 ml, a little more than half a US cup. Pour it boiling over the crumbs so they swell fully in the half-hour soak.
- Clarified butterButter melted and the milk solids skimmed and poured off. Plain melted butter works here and only slightly changes the texture; ghee is the closest ready-made equivalent.
- Small cupsDariole moulds or ramekins of about 4 fl oz. Butter them well and fill just over half, since the eggs lift the mixture as it bakes and it needs room.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. Twenty minutes should set the centres; they are done when the tops are lightly coloured and a skewer comes out clean.
- Wine saucePeriod wine sauces vary: commonly sweetened white wine or sherry, served hot, sometimes thickened lightly with egg yolk, flour or a little arrowroot. A sabayon or a warm custard laced with sherry serves the same purpose.
- YieldSix small patties, as stated, which is a dessert for four to six people. Turn them out and serve at once, as the recipe directs, with the sauce.
This is one of the many bread-crumb puddings of the Victorian kitchen. The name is misleading to modern eyes: patty in nineteenth-century English cookery meant a small individual portion, savoury or sweet, baked or fried in its own little mould or case, rather than anything flattened. The rubbing of sugar lumps on citrus peel is older still, standard practice in eighteenth-century English confectionery for extracting the oil before microplanes existed, and it survives in Italian and French kitchens today. The costing of 8d and the reference to a penny loaf are typical of Cassell's, which priced almost every dish so that a household manager could weigh recipes against the week's budget.