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Prince Frederick's Pudding
Rub two or three lumps of sugar upon the rind of a fresh lemon until all the yellow part is taken off. Crush them to powder with additional sugar to make up the weight to four ounces. Beat separately the yolks and whites of six eggs, and, when they are thoroughly whisked, put them together, and add the flavoured sugar and the strained juice of the lemon. Butter a tin mould, and half fill it with the mixture. Bake in a quick oven. Serve immediately before the pudding has time to fall. A sauce prepared as follows may be sent to table with it. Whisk two eggs thoroughly, and mix with them gradually a glassful of sherry or Madeira. Add a little sugar which has been rubbed upon lemon-rind and powdered. Pour the mixture into a saucepan, and stir it briskly over the fire until it is well frothed and very hot; it must not boil. Pour it round the pudding, and serve. Time to bake the pudding, ten to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 10d., exclusive of the sauce. Sufficient for three or four persons.
This is a flourless lemon soufflé — nothing but eggs, sugar and lemon — with a warm sabayon poured round it. Everything depends on air and on speed.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe whites and yolks are beaten separately for a reason, and the instruction to "put them together" means fold gently until barely combined. Any brisk beating at this stage knocks out the air and the pudding will not rise, or will rise and collapse into a rubbery sheet.
- Quick ovenThe book gives no temperatures; "quick oven" is usually read as roughly 400-425F (200-220C). At that heat a half-filled mould of egg foam sets and puffs in the ten to fifteen minutes given. A cooler oven gives a flat, weeping pudding.
- Rubbing sugar on the rindAn older substitute for grated zest: dragging a hard sugar lump over the lemon abrades the oil-bearing outer skin without the bitter white pith. Modern granulated sugar is too fine to do this, so use whole cubes as written, or replace with 4 oz caster sugar rubbed with the finely grated zest of one lemon.
- Four ounces of sugarAbout 1/2 cup — the flavoured lumps are crushed and made up to that total weight, not added to it. With six eggs that is a lightly sweetened pudding, which is the point against the lemon juice.
- The mouldA plain buttered tin mould or a straight-sided souffle dish, filled no more than halfway; the mixture roughly doubles. Do not use a fluted or hinged mould, and do not attempt to turn the pudding out.
- "A glassful" of sherryA Victorian wineglass is about 2 fl oz (1/4 cup). More than that and the sauce will not thicken.
- The sauce must not boilThis is a sabayon. Whisk it constantly in a bowl set over barely simmering water rather than directly on the burner as written — the original saucepan-over-the-fire method scrambles very readily. It is done when thick, foamy and hot to the fingertip, around 160-170F (71-77C).
- Timing and serviceServes three or four as written. Have the plates, the sauce and the diners ready before the pudding leaves the oven; it begins to fall within a minute or two.
Cassell's carried a number of puddings named for royalty and nobility, and such names generally tell you more about a cook's aspirations than about any documented connection. Which Prince Frederick was meant is not recorded. What is more revealing is the construction: no flour, no breadcrumbs, no suet, just six eggs held up by their own beaten whites and served with a wine sabayon. That places it at the French-influenced end of the English repertoire, the kind of dish a household with a trained cook and a reliable range could risk, since it must be carried from oven to table in under a minute. The "probable cost, 10d." is a characteristic Cassell's touch — the book gives costs and yields for those budgeting a kitchen as much as for the cooks working in it.