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Rice Snowballs
Wash half a pound of rice, and boil it for half an hour in as much milk and water as will cover it. Drain it, and let it stand till cold. Pare six apples of equal size. Scoop out the cores without breaking the fruit, and put into the empty space a little piece of butter, a spoonful of sugar, and a little grated lemon-rind or some powdered cinnamon. Flour as many small cloths as there are apples; spread upon each one as much rice, half an inch thick, as will cover an apple, lay the apple upon it, and tie it loosely but securely. Put the puddings into boiling water, and keep them boiling until done enough. Turn out upon a dish, and serve sweet sauce, wine sauce, or custard with them. Time to boil, one hour. Probable cost, 1 1/2d. each pudding. Sufficient for six puddings.
A Victorian boiled pudding scaled down to individual portions: each apple gets its own jacket of cooked rice and its own cloth. The technique is straightforward, but two details decide whether it works.
- Tie loosely, but seal wellThe rice swells again in the water, so the cloth needs slack. Pulled tight, the casing splits and you boil away the coating; left open at the seam, water gets in and the rice turns to slurry. Gather the cloth and tie just above the apple with string, leaving a little room.
- The clothsSquares of muslin, cheesecloth or clean cotton about 10 inches across, scalded first, then floured while damp so the flour forms a skin. If cloths are more trouble than you want, line six buttered dariole moulds or teacups with the rice, seat the apple in the middle, cover tightly with foil and steam for the same hour.
- Rice and liquidHalf a pound is about 1 1/4 cups of short or medium-grain white rice; long-grain will not cling well enough to hold a shape. The recipe gives no proportions; "as much milk and water as will cover it" is usually read as roughly equal parts, 2 to 2 1/2 cups in total. The rice should be soft and sticky rather than fluffy, and it must be cold before you handle it or it will not stay put.
- Choose apples that holdSmall, firm cooking apples of even size, such as Granny Smith or Northern Spy. Anything that collapses to sauce, a Bramley for instance, will burst the rice from within during a full hour of boiling. Core with an apple corer or a narrow knife from the stem end, leaving the base intact so the butter and sugar stay in.
- "Until done enough"The stated hour suits apples of moderate and even size in water kept at a steady boil, topped up as it evaporates. Test by pressing the top of a pudding through the cloth: it should give easily. Undercooked apple in a cooked rice shell is the usual failure.
- The sauces"Sweet sauce" here is melted butter beaten with sugar and a little water or cream; wine sauce is the same with sherry or Madeira in place of the water. A pouring custard is the easiest modern choice and the most forgiving with a hot pudding.
- Yield and costSix puddings, one apiece, and substantial. The "1 1/2d." is the pre-decimal price in pence — a pricing convention Cassell's used throughout so a housekeeper could budget a meal to the penny.
Boiled puddings tied in floured cloths were a mainstay of English domestic cookery from the seventeenth century onward: a cloth and a pot of water did the work of an oven, which many households did not have to themselves. "Snowball" was used for various small round puddings boiled in a cloth and turned out pale — sometimes rice around an apple, as here, sometimes suet paste, sometimes plain rice with jam. The filling of butter, sugar and grated lemon rind or cinnamon in a hollowed apple is older than this book and survives in the modern baked apple.