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Pineapple Pudding, Cold, or Pain D'Ananas, Rich
Pare a large ripe pineapple, and carefully take out the specks or eyes. Slice it, and cut it into dice. Boil for ten minutes in a quarter of a pint of syrup, and put the fruit aside until wanted. Tear the rind into small pieces, and pour over these half a pint of boiling cream. Let them infuse for half an hour, then stir in the yolks of six eggs, well beaten, and three table-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir the custard over a moderate fire until it begins to thicken, strain it, and when it is quite cold add the syrup and the fruit. Ornament a plain mould according to the directions given in the preceding recipe, set it in ice, and fill it with the preparation. Put a baking-sheet over it, lay some ice on this, and let it remain until the pudding is wanted. Turn it out of the mould carefully, and serve. Time to prepare, an hour or more. Probable cost, 3s. 6d. Sufficient for four or more persons.
A Victorian moulded iced custard, flavoured twice over: once from the fruit itself and once from an infusion of the discarded rind. Nothing here is difficult, but the recipe assumes a great deal of kitchen knowledge that no longer comes free.
- The hinge: the mould must be freezing, not merely coldIce alone sits at 32F and will chill the pudding without setting it firmly. The recipe as printed says only to set the mould in ice, but period practice for iced moulds was to pack them in crushed ice mixed with coarse salt (ratios of about three parts ice to one of salt are commonly given), which drops the bath below freezing; the baking-sheet and ice on top did the same job for the lid. With plain ice the mixture is liable to stay slack and may not turn out cleanly.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so a quarter-pint of syrup is 5 fl oz (about 2/3 cup) and half a pint of cream is 10 fl oz (1 1/4 cups). Three tablespoonfuls of sugar is around 1 1/2 oz.
- The syrup is not givenAssume a plain sugar syrup of equal weights sugar and water, boiled until clear. Ten minutes' simmering in it both softens the dice and, incidentally, destroys the bromelain in fresh pineapple, which is why the fruit can safely meet a dairy custard at all.
- Raw pineapple would ruin itBromelain digests protein and turns egg custard and cream watery and bitter. Do not shortcut the boiling step, and do not fold in extra uncooked fruit at the end.
- Custard temperature"Until it begins to thicken" means about 175-180F on a thermometer, over gentle heat or a bain-marie. Six yolks in 10 fl oz of cream will scramble quickly if pushed.
- StrainingThe strain is not optional here, since the rind pieces, any coagulated egg and stray fibres all need to come out. Chill the custard completely before adding syrup and fruit, or the warmth will thin the whole thing.
- Lining the mouldThe "preceding recipe" is not reproduced here; the instruction is simply to ornament a plain mould. Presumably this meant arranging fruit against the chilled metal before filling. Modern equivalent: chill a metal charlotte or loaf mould hard, arrange the fruit, then fill.
- Yield and turning outThe recipe gives it as sufficient for four or more. Dip the mould briefly in cool water and invert onto a chilled dish; an iced custard softens fast, so serve immediately.
Pain in French kitchen usage means a moulded, loaf-shaped preparation rather than bread, and by the later nineteenth century pain d'ananas is generally taken to have covered a family of iced or set fruit shapes served as an entremets. The "probable cost, 3s. 6d." given for the finished dish is the most telling line in the recipe: pineapples reached British tables either from hothouse pineries on great estates or, from the mid-century, by steamship from the West Indies and the Azores. The expense of the fruit explains the thrift of infusing the pared rind in the cream, a habit Cassell's applies to lemon peel and vanilla pods alike. The whole dish also depended on the Victorian ice trade, which by the 1870s brought cheap lake ice into cities in bulk and appears to have made ice-packed moulds far more common in middle-class kitchens rather than the preserve of houses with their own ice-well.