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Rice Pudding, Baked
Wash six ounces of rice, and boil it gently in a little more milk than it will absorb. When it is tender without being broken, pour it out, and mix with it a pinch of salt, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, a table-spoonful of finely-shredded suet, or, if preferred, a slice of butter, and a little grated nutmeg, or any other flavouring. Let the rice cool, then stir into it one or two eggs, according to the richness required. It will be very good without any. Bake the pudding in a moderately-heated oven, and serve with sifted sugar. Time to bake, one hour. Probable cost, 10d., if made with one egg. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A two-stage pudding: the rice is simmered soft on the stove first, then enriched and baked. That first step is what separates this from the long, slow oven puddings, and it means the baking time is about setting the custard rather than cooking the grain.
- Quantities in modern termsSix ounces of rice is about 170g, or a scant cup of short-grain pudding rice. Two tablespoons of sugar is around 25g; a tablespoon of shredded suet or "a slice of butter" is roughly 15-20g.
- How much milk"A little more milk than it will absorb" is vague by design, since absorbency varies. Start with roughly 700-850ml (about 1¼-1½ imperial pints) whole milk to 170g rice, simmer gently, and stop when the grains are tender but still whole with a little loose milk around them.
- Oven temperatureA "moderately-heated oven" is usually read today as somewhere around 350-375F/180-190C. At that heat the recipe's stated hour suits a dish of this size; the pudding should be just set with a faint wobble at the centre.
- SuetShredded beef suet gives a slightly savoury richness, and suet was a common pudding fat in Victorian kitchens. Packaged shredded suet still exists, though the butter alternative the recipe offers is the easier option now.
- The eggsStir them in only after the rice has cooled to warm, or they will scramble in the hot grain. One egg gives a loose, milky pudding; two gives something closer to a set custard. The note that it is "very good without any" is accurate — you simply get a creamier, softer result.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives five or six portions; a dish of about 2 pints (roughly 1.1 litres) capacity would suit. "Sifted sugar" means fine sugar sifted over at the table.
- CostTenpence in pre-decimal money, quoted as a household check on expense — a reminder that this was priced as a cheap family pudding, not a luxury.
Rice puddings had long been made in England, and by the later nineteenth century rice was cheap and imported in quantity, so the baked rice pudding had become a standard nursery and family sweet. What is notable about this version is its structure: it treats the pudding as a formula with adjustable richness — no egg, one egg, two eggs; suet or butter — and it prices the result, in the manner of Victorian household manuals aimed at managing a kitchen budget. The parboiling step may reflect the uncertainty of contemporary ovens, and suet in a sweet dish, odd to modern eyes, was not unusual in kitchens where beef fat was to hand.