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Semolina Cup-Puddings
Put three ounces of semolina into a bowl, and pour over it as much milk as will cover it. Let it soak for half an hour, drain it, and put it into a saucepan with a pint and a half of boiling milk, three table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar, a slice of fresh butter, and a salt-spoonful of grated lemon-rind. Stir it over the fire without ceasing for about a quarter of an hour. Pour it out, let it cool a little, and beat briskly into it four well-whisked eggs. Pour the mixture into buttered cups, and bake in a moderate oven. Turn the puddings upon a dish, and pour sweet sauce round them before serving. Time to bake, ten minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A baked semolina custard, closer to a set milk pudding than a sponge. The proportions are sound; the vagueness is all in the vessels and the oven.
- The soak is not optionalSemolina left dry in hot milk goes lumpy at the edges and gritty in the middle. The half-hour soak in cold milk hydrates the grains so they swell evenly once they hit the boiling milk, and the draining stops the mixture from thinning.
- Quantities in modern termsThree ounces of semolina is about 85 g, or a scant half cup. A pint and a half of milk in a British book of this period is 30 fl oz, roughly 850 ml. The recipe does not specify the grade of semolina; either fine or coarse will work, coarse giving more texture.
- Vague measuresA salt-spoonful is about a quarter teaspoon, so the lemon zest is a light touch rather than a flavouring. "A slice of fresh butter" means an ounce or so cut from the block; "fresh" here means unsalted.
- Stirring for a quarter of an hourThat is the real work of the recipe. Semolina catches and scorches the moment it is left alone, so keep the heat moderate and the spoon moving across the base of the pan the whole time.
- Cool before the eggsBeating four whisked eggs into a near-boiling porridge will scramble them. Let the pan sit until it is warm rather than hot, then beat the eggs in briskly as directed.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. The cups are best set in a roasting tin with hot water halfway up their sides, which keeps the custard from curdling at the edges.
- Ten minutes is shortSmall dariole moulds or teacups holding an egg-rich custard of this depth generally need 20 to 30 minutes at that temperature. Bake until the centre is just set and a knife comes out clean, then rest a few minutes before turning out or they will collapse.
- Sweet sauceVictorian sweet sauces for puddings ranged from a thin pouring custard to a jam sauce let down with water and strained, or a sweetened butter-and-wine sauce; the recipe does not say which. The pudding itself is barely sweet.
- Yield and costThe recipe states it is sufficient for five or six persons rather than giving a number of moulds. The 1s. 3d. is an estimated ingredient cost at the time of publication; 'probable cost' is a costing convention the book applies to most of its entries.
Semolina, the coarse durum wheat middlings left after milling, was by the time Cassell's dictionary appeared a fixture of the nursery and the invalid tray alongside sago, tapioca and ground rice. Milk puddings of this kind were valued for being cheap, digestible and endlessly variable, and the move here from a plain boiled semolina to something enriched with four eggs and baked in individual cups looks like a familiar Victorian trick for lifting a schoolroom staple onto the dinner table. Turning small puddings out of buttered moulds and ringing them with sauce belongs to the same impulse: the same pennyworth of grain, served in the shape of a made dish.