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PUMPKIN PUDDING (another way) (Boil the pumpkin and rub it)
Boil the pumpkin, and rub it through a sieve, as in the last recipe. With a pint of the pulp put three-quarters of a pint of warm milk, an ounce of butter, a large nutmeg, grated, a pinch of powdered mace, three table-spoonfuls of moist sugar, two table-spoonfuls of picked and dried currants, and three well-beaten eggs. Beat the batter briskly for two or three minutes. Line a dish with pastry, pour in the mixture, and bake in a moderate oven for about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for six persons.
A pumpkin custard baked in a pastry case — closer to an English nutmeg-heavy custard tart than to American pumpkin pie. The one thing that decides the result is how wet the pumpkin is when it goes into the batter.
- Dry the pulp firstBoiled pumpkin holds a great deal of water, and the sieved pulp should be returned to a dry pan and stirred over heat until it stops steaming and pulls away from the sides. Wet pulp plus warm milk gives a filling that never sets and a soggy pastry base.
- Imperial measuresCassell's is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz — about 2½ cups of pulp, with three-quarters of a pint of milk working out at 15 fl oz, roughly 1¾ cups. An ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons.
- Moist sugar"Moist sugar" is unrefined soft sugar, still carrying some molasses; light brown sugar is the closest modern equivalent. Three tablespoons is a restrained amount by current pie standards, and the pudding is meant to taste of spice and egg rather than sweetness.
- A large nutmeg is a lotA whole grated nutmeg is roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons, which will dominate everything. Half that is nearer modern taste, and grate it fresh — pre-ground nutmeg has lost most of what the recipe is asking for.
- Moderate ovenRead "moderate" as 350°F (180°C). The custard is set when the edges are firm and the centre still wobbles slightly; carry-over heat finishes it as it cools. Three-quarters of an hour is realistic for a deep dish, less for a shallow one.
- Blind-bake the caseThe recipe pours a liquid filling straight into a raw pastry-lined dish. For a crisp base, bake the shortcrust blind at 400°F until dry and pale gold, then reduce to 350°F for the filling.
- Currants"Picked and dried" means stalks and grit removed — modern dried currants come clean. They sink in a thin batter, so toss them in a little flour or scatter them over the surface once the custard has begun to set.
- YieldSix servings, from a 9-inch deep pie dish or a 10-inch shallow one. Serve barely warm or at room temperature; hot, the custard tastes flat.
Pumpkin appears in Victorian English cookery books as a cheap, bulky kitchen-garden vegetable rather than a seasonal treat, and Cassell's treats it much as it treats marrow or squash — boiled, sieved, and pushed towards either a savoury dish or a sweetened custard. This version belongs to the long English tradition of pudding-in-a-pastry-case, where sieved vegetable or fruit pulp is bound with eggs, milk and butter and spiced with nutmeg and mace; the same formula served carrot, parsnip and potato puddings long before pumpkin joined the list. Cassell's gives a 'probable cost' for most of its recipes, so the 'uncertain' here stands out — possibly because pumpkin was more often home-grown than bought and no market figure was to hand. It sits in the same broad family as American pumpkin pie, though the currants and the modest sugar mark it as the older English line.