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Little Mary's Cup Puddings
Grate the rind of a large fresh lemon upon two ounces of finely-sifted sugar. Mix a dessert-spoonful of the juice with half a pint of cold water. Dissolve the sugar in this over the fire; add a quarter of a pound of butter, and a wine-glassful of sherry, or any other light wine, and when the butter is melted, pour the mixture out to cool. Mix four ounces of flour very smoothly with three well-beaten eggs, add the cooled liquid very gradually, and stir the batter over the fire for three minutes. Take some well-buttered cups, three-parts fill them with the mixture, and bake in a quick oven. Turn the puddings out of the cups before serving, and sift a little powdered sugar over them. Time to bake, half an hour. Probable cost, exclusive of the wine, 10d. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A small baked batter pudding, rich with butter and wine, cooked partly on the stove before it goes into the oven. The stovetop stage is where it succeeds or fails.
- The hinge: stirring over the fireYou are cooking a loose egg batter for three minutes, which is long enough to scramble it over direct heat. Use the lowest flame or a heatproof bowl over simmering water, stir without stopping, and pull it off as soon as it thickens to a pourable cream.
- Add the liquid gradually, and coldThe butter-and-wine mixture must be cooled before it meets the eggs, and dribbled into the flour paste a little at a time. Poured in fast or warm it will both lump the flour and set the eggs.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint is 10 fl oz, or 1¼ US cups. A dessert-spoonful is about two teaspoons. A wine-glassful in Victorian cookery books is roughly 2 fl oz, a quarter cup.
- WeightsTwo ounces of sugar is about ¼ cup; four ounces of flour is a scant cup, best weighed; a quarter pound of butter is 4 oz, which is one US stick, or 8 tablespoons.
- "Cups"These are teacups or dariole moulds of about 4 to 6 fl oz. Ramekins work; butter them heavily and thoroughly to the rim, since the puddings are turned out.
- A quick ovenNo temperature is given; a quick oven is usually read as roughly 400-425F. In small moulds, check at 20 minutes rather than trusting the full half hour, as the batter puffs and browns quickly.
- Finely-sifted sugarThis means what we would call caster or superfine sugar; the "powdered sugar" sifted over at the end is also caster rather than modern confectioners' sugar, though either finishes the dish.
- YieldSix to eight by Victorian standards, where this was one of several sweet dishes. Expect six modern servings, and serve them hot, since they sink as they cool.
Cassell's arranged its material as a dictionary rather than a narrative, which is why a family recipe with a nursery-sounding name sits among the general principles. Attributions of this kind — a Christian name, a child's name, a contributor's household — appear throughout books of this sort, and "Little Mary" is more likely domestic than famous, though the entry itself says nothing about the name. Cooking a flour-and-egg batter briefly over heat before baking it in buttered cups is close to the method behind dariole and cabinet puddings, and the sherry and lemon rind suggest a dinner sweet rather than a nursery one, whatever the title implies. The costing in pence, given "exclusive of the wine," points to a readership in which household spending was itemised.