Home › The Principles of Cookery › Pineapple Pudding
Pineapple Pudding
Boil half a pint of milk with three ounces of butter and three ounces of sugar. As soon as the milk rises in the pan, lift it from the fire, stir four ounces of flour into it, and beat it well until it is quite smooth. Put it on the fire again, and stir until it leaves the sides of the saucepan with the spoon. Pour it out, and mix in the well-beaten yolks of three eggs and three ounces of preserved pineapple cut into dice. Butter a mould rather thickly, and just before pouring the mixture into it, add the whites of the eggs, which have been beaten to a firm froth. Steam the pudding by placing it in a saucepan upon an inverted pudding-plate, and keeping it surrounded with about three inches of boiling water until it is done enough. Turn the pudding out upon its dish, with a little wine sauce poured over it. Time to steam, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for four persons.
This is a steamed pudding built on a flour panada — effectively an unbaked choux paste — so the texture depends entirely on how far you cook the paste and how gently you fold in the whites.
- Half a pintCassell's is British, so a pint is 20 fl oz and half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ cups. Using a US 8 oz cup will give a stiffer paste; add a spoonful or two of milk if it will not come smooth.
- The hinge: cook the paste outKeep stirring over the heat until the mass forms a single ball and leaves a film on the pan base, as with choux. Underdone paste tastes raw and floury and the pudding sinks; the cooked paste gives the pudding its body, while the beaten whites give the lift.
- Cool before the yolksThe original says only "pour it out" — let the paste drop to about hand-warm first, or the yolks will scramble in it. Beat each addition in until glossy.
- Whites last, and at onceFold the firmly beaten whites in and get the pudding into the mould and the water immediately, as instructed. Held about, the mixture deflates and steams heavy.
- Preserved pineappleIn this period 'preserved' means candied or glace fruit, or fruit kept in heavy syrup and drained, rather than tinned. Tinned pineapple in juice carries far too much liquid, and fresh pineapple contains bromelain, a protease that will slacken the mixture. Dice the fruit small and toss it in a little of the flour if it is very sticky.
- The mouldButter thickly as directed and fill no more than two-thirds; the pudding rises. A 1-quart pudding basin or charlotte mould suits this quantity. Cover it with buttered paper or foil so condensation does not fall onto the surface.
- The steaming rigThe inverted pudding-plate is simply a trivet to lift the mould off the pan base. Any rack or folded cloth does the same. Keep the water at a bare, steady simmer three inches up the mould and top up with boiling water as it drops — cold water will check the rise.
- Doneness and yieldThree-quarters of an hour is about right for a 1-quart mould; the pudding should feel springy and a skewer come out clean. Rest five minutes before turning out. Serves four as written.
- Wine sauceThe period sauce is sweet white wine or sherry thickened lightly with egg yolk or arrowroot and sugar, served warm. Any sweet custard or sabayon fills the same role.
Puddings of this type sit at the point where the French flour panada met the English steamed pudding: the milk-butter-flour paste enriched with eggs is the same base used for choux and for the panadas that bound quenelles, but Cassell's steams it in a buttered mould and sends it out with wine sauce, in the thoroughly Victorian manner. Fresh pineapple was a luxury grown under glass in British hothouses, while candied or "preserved" pineapple could be bought imported by the jar, putting a tropical flavour within reach of a household that could meet the shilling-and-sixpence Cassell's quotes. The costing itself is characteristic of the New Dictionary of Cookery, which was written for cooks working to a budget and quotes a probable cost for each dish.