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Ratafia Pudding, Baked
Slice four penny spongecakes, lay them in a buttered dish, pour a glassful of sherry over them, and let them soak for a little while. Spread a large spoonful of good jam upon them, and pour over them half a pint of good custard flavoured with almonds. Let the pudding stand for half an hour, cover the top with ratafia biscuits, and pour another half-pint of custard over these. Bake in a moderate oven. The custard may be made with three-quarters of a pint of milk, the yolks of four eggs and the white of one, two ounces of almonds blanched and pounded, and a table-spoonful of sugar. Time to bake, half an hour. Probable cost, exclusive of the wine, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian layered baked custard built on soaked sponge and almond macaroons. The whole thing turns on custard handling: this is a baked egg custard, and it wants gentle heat.
- The hinge: bake it gentlyThe hinge: bake it gently. "Moderate oven" is conventionally read today as somewhere around 350F, though the book gives no temperatures; a custard set at that heat straight on the shelf will curdle at the edges before the middle firms. Stand the dish in a roasting tin of hot water and hold the oven nearer 325F; it is done when the centre still wobbles as a single mass.
- Penny spongecakesSmall individual sponges sold by the piece, each roughly the size of a modern sponge finger or a little larger. Eight to ten trifle sponge fingers, or a couple of thick slices of plain sponge cake, fill the same space.
- Ratafia biscuitsTiny hard almond macaroons, about the diameter of a coin. Italian amaretti, the small crisp kind, are the closest thing on a supermarket shelf; use enough to cover the surface in a single layer, around 3 oz.
- A glassful of sherryA wine glass in nineteenth-century English cookery is about 2 fl oz, a quarter cup. Enough to damp the sponge without flooding the dish.
- Imperial half-pintsAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so each "half-pint of good custard" is 10 fl oz and the three-quarter pint of milk is 15 fl oz. The recipe pours a pint of custard in total from a base of only three-quarters of a pint of milk, though the four yolks, the white and the pounded almonds make up much of the difference. If you come up short, add a little more milk, or accept a shallower top layer.
- The almondsTwo ounces of blanched sweet almonds, pounded. The recipe does not say to strain them out. If you would rather not have a grainy set, warm them in the milk, leave twenty minutes off the heat, then strain before adding the eggs.
- SugarOne tablespoon for a pint of custard is barely sweet by modern taste; the jam is doing the work. If your jam is a tart one, two tablespoons is defensible.
- Yield and servingFour to five as written. Serve warm or at room temperature, not chilled hard, or the almond flavour flattens.
Ratafia began as a cordial rather than a biscuit: a sweetened spirit flavoured with almond or with the kernels of peaches, apricots and cherries, all of which carry the same bitter-almond note. The name is generally traced to the toast drunk to seal an agreement, from the Latin rata fiat, though that derivation is traditional rather than settled. By the eighteenth century English confectioners were selling small hard almond macaroons under the same name, and by Cassell's day the biscuits were a standard grocer's item, used chiefly for lining trifle dishes and studding puddings exactly as here. The recipe itself belongs to the large Victorian family of made-over sponge cake puddings, in which yesterday's cake, a spoonful of jam, a glass of wine and a custard were assembled into something presentable, with the cost noted to the penny for the mistress checking the household books.