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Prince Consort's Pudding
Rub three or four large lumps of sugar upon the rind of a small lemon until all the yellow part is taken off, then crush them to powder, with a little additional sugar to make up the weight to two ounces. Grate finely six ounces of stale spongecake, pour over it half a pint of boiling milk or cream, and add the flavoured sugar and a pinch of salt. Let the crumbs soak until the milk is cold, then beat the mixture with a fork, and stir into it the yolks of four eggs and the white of one well whisked. Butter a mould thickly, and flour it, ornament the inside with dried fruit, pour in the mixture, and tie it over with oiled paper. Put it on a plate turned upside down in a saucepan, and let there be two or three inches of boiling water round it; the water must not come so high as to flow into the pudding. When it is done enough, turn it out, and send jam and a good custard to table with it, or a sauce prepared as follows. Pour a quarter of a pint of boiling milk over a tea-spoonful of arrowroot which has been mixed to a smooth paste with a little of the same liquid. Sweeten it, and stir it over the fire for two or three minutes. Pour it out, and mix with it a quarter of a pound of any kind of fruit jelly, either red-currant, raspberry, or cherry. The jelly should have been previously dissolved till it is in a liquid state. The sauce may either be poured round the pudding or served in a tureen. Time to steam the pudding, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 2d., if made with milk, and exclusive of the sauce. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A steamed sponge-cake custard, closer to a delicate bread pudding than to a suet pudding. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat: it is a baked custard cooked in steam, and hard boiling will curdle it.
- Keep the water at a bare simmerThe mixture is four yolks and one white in half an imperial pint (10 fl oz) of milk or cream, so it sets like custard rather than cake. A rolling boil around the mould will make it grainy and weepy; hold the water at a lazy simmer for the full 45 minutes.
- Rubbing sugar on the lemonDragging sugar lumps over the zest pulls the citrus oil into the sugar (the same principle as an oleo-saccharum). Modern equivalent: 2 oz / 55 g granulated sugar rubbed with the finely grated zest of one small lemon until damp and fragrant.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint here is the imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz or about 1¼ US cups; the quarter pint of milk for the sauce is 5 fl oz, roughly ⅔ cup. Six ounces of grated sponge is about 170 g, or four generous cups of loose crumbs.
- Stale sponge cakePlain Victoria sponge or a trimmed store-bought sponge flan case, left uncovered overnight, grates into dry crumbs that drink the milk. Fresh cake pastes up on the grater; a food processor pulsed briefly does the job on softer cake.
- The mould and its coveringA 1-pint pudding basin or charlotte mould, buttered thickly and floured so the dried fruit pattern releases. Oiled paper can be replaced by buttered parchment with a pleat, tied under the rim, with foil over the top to keep condensation out.
- The upturned plateThat is the period's trivet: it keeps the mould off the direct heat of the pan base. Any folded cloth, jar ring or steamer rack does the same, and the water should reach no more than halfway up the mould.
- Testing for doneAfter 45 minutes the pudding should feel set with a slight wobble at the centre and a skewer should come out clean, not milky. Let it stand five minutes before turning out or the sides will slump.
- The arrowroot sauceA teaspoon of arrowroot to 5 fl oz milk gives a thin pouring sauce; stir it over low heat only until it thickens and clears, as prolonged boiling breaks arrowroot down and thins it again. The 4 oz of melted redcurrant or raspberry jelly is what carries the flavour.
- YieldThree or four portions, as stated. Doubling it would need a larger mould and a longer steam, though the recipe gives no guidance on how much longer.
Cassell's, in common with other Victorian compilers, sometimes hung royal names on genteel puddings, and the Prince Consort is Albert, who died in 1861 and whose name went on being attached to dishes for years afterwards; there is no evidence linking the recipe to anything he actually ate, and such attributions are better read as fashion than as provenance. The method is of its period: stale sponge cake would not have been wasted, and grating it into hot milk to make an enriched custard pudding, flavoured with lemon-rubbed sugar and served with a fruit-jelly sauce, was a familiar approach. The costing of 1s. 2d. is characteristic of the book, which gives a probable cost for nearly every dish; arrowroot was a common household thickener, valued as light and easily digested for invalids and children as well as at the dinner table.