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Rice Pudding, Baked, Baron Brisse's
Wash half a pound of rice, pick out the discoloured grains, and swell it gently but thoroughly in as little milk as possible. Turn it into a bowl, and when cool add the lightly-grated rind of a fresh lemon, a pinch of salt, four ounces of powdered sugar, a slice of butter, and the well-beaten yolks of three eggs. Butter the inside of a copper cake-mould, and sprinkle as many finely-grated bread-crumbs over it as the butter will hold, shake off those which do not adhere, and brush a little butter lightly over those which do. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, and at the last moment stir them gradually into the rice. Pour the mixture gently into the mould, that the crumbs may not be displaced, put it into a very gentle oven, and let it remain until done enough. Turn out carefully, so as not to break the pudding. It ought to look like a well-browned cake. Time to bake, one hour or more. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
This is a French gâteau de riz rather than the soupy nursery pudding the English name suggests: it is turned out whole and should slice like a cake. Everything depends on cooking the rice until it is completely tender in very little liquid, and on baking it slowly enough that the eggs set without souffléing and collapsing.
- The rice and the milkHalf a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of short-grain pudding rice. "As little milk as possible" in practice means roughly 2 to 2½ cups, added in stages over low heat until the grains are soft and the mixture is thick and almost dry; any free liquid left in the pan will keep the pudding from holding its shape.
- A very gentle ovenThe book gives no temperature; a slow oven, somewhere around 300F, is the usual modern equivalent. At a higher heat the beaten whites lift the pudding, the crust sets, and it sinks and cracks as it cools. An hour or more is accurate; test with a skewer at the centre, which should come out clean.
- Powdered sugarIn a British book of this date this means finely ground granulated sugar, what is now sold as caster sugar. Four ounces is about half a cup. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and is not the same thing, though the pudding will survive it.
- A slice of butterAn unhelpfully vague measure; 1 to 1½ ounces (2 to 3 tablespoons) stirred into the hot rice is in keeping with the richness of the rest.
- The mouldA plain deep mould; the quantities suggest something in the region of 6 cups. Use a charlotte mould, a deep cake tin or a metal pudding basin. Old copper moulds that have lost their tin lining should not be used with a lemon-scented milk mixture.
- The crumb liningThis is the hinge of the recipe. The buttered crumbs give the finished pudding its brown "cake" surface and let it release cleanly, so butter generously, coat, knock out the loose crumbs, and pour the mixture down the side of the mould rather than into the middle.
- Folding the whitesCool the rice to lukewarm before adding the yolks or they will scramble, and fold the whites in with a spatula in three additions. Whisking them stiff rather than to a soft peak, as directed, keeps the pudding from going flat while it is being poured.
- Turning outLet it stand 10 minutes out of the oven, run a thin knife round the edge, then invert onto a warm plate. Serves five or six; a fruit compote or apricot sauce is a common French accompaniment.
Baron Léon Brisse (1813-1876) was a French gastronomic journalist who published a daily menu in the Paris paper La Liberté, later collected as Les 366 menus du Baron Brisse; his name carried enough authority in the 1870s and 80s that English compilers such as Cassell's attached it to individual dishes as a mark of provenance. What he supplies here is the standard French gâteau de riz: rice cooked down in milk, enriched with yolks and lightened with whites, baked in a crumbed mould and unmoulded to be eaten as a cake. Its appearance in an English dictionary of cookery beside the plainer boiled and baked rice puddings of the nursery shows the period's habit of pairing a homely native dish with its more elaborate Continental cousin, and the citation of a probable cost of one shilling shows who the book was written for: a household that had to weigh the lemon and the three eggs against the week's budget.