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Rice Pudding, Baked, Small
Boil a quarter of a pound of rice in a little more than a pint of milk sweetened and flavoured with almonds. When it is soft and thick pour it out, and mix with it three well-beaten eggs. Butter some small cups thickly, and cover the inside with candied peel cut into very thin shreds. Half fill them with the rice, and put it in very gently, not to displace the peel. Bake the puddings in a moderate oven. When done enough turn them out, and serve on a neatly-folded napkin, and send cream, custard, or wine sauce to table with them. Time to bake, about forty minutes. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons. Or, boil a table-spoonful of rice in a quarter of a pint of milk till tender, then mix with it a little sugar and flavouring, a pinch of salt, and a slice of butter. Peel, core, and slice a good-sized apple, and stew it to pulp with half a spoonful of water, a small piece of butter, and a little sugar which has been rubbed upon a lemon for a minute or two. Put the apple into a small buttered dish, mix an egg with the rice, and pour over it. Bake in a moderate oven. Time to bake, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 4d. Sufficient for one person.
Two versions of the same idea: a rich moulded rice pudding baked in cups and lined with candied peel, and a single-serving apple-and-rice pudding. Both are straightforward, but a few of the quantities and instructions need translating.
- Moderate ovenRead this as roughly 350F (175C), though the term was never precise. The recipe gives its own times: about forty minutes for the small cups, a quarter of an hour for the apple pudding.
- The hinge: keep the peel in placeThe candied peel is pressed against the buttered cup so it becomes the decorative outside once the pudding is turned out. Butter the cups heavily, chill them so the butter sets and holds the shreds, then spoon the rice in gently rather than pouring.
- Rice and milk ratioA quarter pound is about 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of short-grain pudding rice; a little more than an imperial pint is roughly 2 1/2 cups of milk. Simmer slowly and stir, as this thickens to a stiff, almost paste-like mass before the eggs go in.
- Cool before adding eggsPouring the rice out may well be to let it cool. Either way, beat the eggs into rice that is warm rather than hot, or they scramble in streaks.
- "Flavoured with almonds"Most likely a handful of blanched sweet almonds pounded and infused in the milk then strained out, or else a few drops of almond essence. Period almond flavouring was often associated with ratafia and bitter almonds; if using modern almond extract, use it sparingly.
- Cups and turning outDariole moulds, small ramekins or teacups all work, though the quantities imply cups larger than a modern 4 fl oz ramekin, since five or six of them are only half filled. Stand them in the oven on a tray, and let the puddings sit a minute or two before inverting so they firm enough to hold their shape.
- Lemon-rubbed sugarRubbing a sugar lump over lemon peel to pick up the oil is the Victorian way of getting lemon zest flavour. Grated zest stirred into the sugar does the same job.
- Yield and servingThe first version fills five or six small cups; the second is one pudding. Serving on a neatly folded napkin was a convention of the period. Cream, a pouring custard or a sweet wine sauce are all still good with it.
Baked rice puddings sit at the thrifty end of English sweet cookery, and Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery gives dozens of them because rice was cheap and stretches milk and eggs a long way. What is interesting here is the class range within a single entry: the first version, at a shilling, is moulded in individual cups and lined with candied peel so that it turns out looking like a small decorated bombe, then sent to table on a folded napkin with cream or wine sauce. The second, at fourpence, is one person's supper, a spoonful of rice over stewed apple.