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RICE MOULD (another way)
Allow a pint of milk to a quarter pint of well-washed rice; cook together for an hour and a half, then flavour and sweeten to taste, and pour into a damp mould to set. Turn out, and serve with plain custard, or jam, or stewed fruit. Probable cost, 6d.
A shaped rice pudding that sets on its own starch rather than gelatine. The whole thing turns on cooking the rice slowly enough that it collapses into a thick paste while still holding liquid.
- The measuresCassell's pint is the imperial 20 fl oz, so a pint of milk is a little under 2.5 US cups, and the quarter pint of rice is 5 imperial fl oz by volume, about 140 ml, which is roughly 120 g or two-thirds of a US cup of short-grain pudding rice. The book measures this ingredient by volume rather than weight.
- Expect to add more milkThat ratio is tight for ninety minutes of cooking; pudding rice will drink three to four times its volume. Keep more milk warm alongside and top up as it thickens, or the bottom will catch long before the grains break down.
- Low heat, or a water bathAn hour and a half over direct flame invites scorching. A heavy pan on the lowest setting with frequent stirring works, and a double boiler works better and needs less attention.
- Flavouring"Flavour ... to taste" in a book of this date would usually be met with a strip of lemon peel or a vanilla pod cooked in the milk and lifted out, or grated nutmeg stirred in at the end. Sugar at about two tablespoons per pint of milk suits modern palates; add it late, as sugar slows the softening of the grains.
- Setting and turning outThere is no gelatine here. The mould sets because the rice starch stiffens as it cools, so it must go into the mould hot and be chilled several hours, ideally overnight. Rinsing the mould with cold water and leaving it wet is what lets the pudding slide free; dip the mould briefly in hot water if it resists.
- TextureThe result is firm and sliceable, closer to a set semolina than to a loose creamed rice. If a softer pudding is wanted, use more milk and serve it in a dish rather than moulded.
- Yield and servingEnough for four as a light pudding. The suggested accompaniments — thin pouring custard, jam, or stewed fruit — all supply the acidity or richness the mould itself lacks.
- Probable costSixpence for the whole dish puts it at the cheap end of the book's sweet dishes.
Moulded rice puddings belong to the Victorian nursery and to the economical end of the dinner table, and the "another way" of the title shows Cassell's gives more than one version. Rice reached British kitchens cheaply through the nineteenth century, from sources including India and the Carolinas, and it stood alongside and increasingly in place of older grain puddings made with barley or oatmeal in households that could afford milk but little else. The moulding is the ambition of the recipe: a shape turned out onto a dish, ringed with jam or stewed fruit, gave a pudding costing sixpence the outline of something served at a better table.