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Spongecake Pudding
Take three or four stale sponge biscuits, or an equal quantity of stale spongecake, cut into slices, put these into a thickly-buttered dish, and pour upon them a pint and a half of boiling milk which has been sweetened and flavoured with a table-spoonful of brandy and with lemon or almond flavouring. Cover the dish with a plate, and let the pudding soak for an hour. Beat it up with a fork, stir into it three or four well-beaten eggs, pour some clarified fresh butter upon the top, sift powdered sugar on the surface, and bake the pudding in a gentle oven. If liked, cream may be used instead of milk. Time to bake, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A baked bread-and-butter pudding built on cake rather than bread, and it depends entirely on the cake being dry enough to drink the milk without collapsing to paste.
- Stale is not optionalFresh spongecake turns to slurry in hot milk. Use cake or sponge biscuits at least two days old, or dry sliced sponge in a 250F oven for 15-20 minutes first.
- Sponge biscuitsThe dry, finger-shaped kind, close to what is now sold as savoiardi or ladyfingers, not the soft filled sort. Three or four biscuits is a modest amount; weigh the cake or biscuit rather than trusting the count, since Victorian sponge biscuits were not a standard size.
- The pint and a halfAn imperial pint and a half is 30 fl oz, or a scant 3<3>/4 US cups. Cassell's gives no sugar quantity: 2-3 tablespoons in the milk suits most palates.
- A gentle ovenThe book gives no temperature; on modern equipment somewhere around 300-325F answers. This is a custard, and higher heat will curdle it and weep liquid into the dish. Three-quarters of an hour at that temperature is about right; the centre should reach about 170-175F and wobble as one mass.
- Adding the eggsAfter an hour under a plate the mixture should be warm rather than hot, so the eggs can go straight in. If it is still steaming, whisk a ladleful into the beaten eggs first, then return it.
- Clarified butter on topButter with the milk solids removed, so it browns rather than burns or speckles. A tablespoon or two brushed over the surface is enough; ghee works identically.
- Almond flavouringUse modern almond extract. Nineteenth-century "almond flavouring" often meant bitter almond essence, which is a different and much stronger article.
- Yield and servingFive or six as written, in a buttered 1<1>/2-quart dish. Serve warm rather than hot, on its own or with cream. The stated cost of 1s 4d is a period price, not a guide to anything now.
The logic of the dish is thrift: sponge biscuits and plain cake went stale quickly in households without airtight storage, and a soaking in sweetened milk turned the leftovers into a second dish. The method is the same one behind bread-and-butter pudding, cabinet pudding and the diplomate — dry sponge, hot custard, gentle baking — a family of English puddings that expanded through the nineteenth century as domestic ovens grew more reliable and cheap sugar and eggs made custards routine. The tablespoon of brandy and the option of cream instead of milk are the standard Victorian levers for raising a nursery pudding to something fit for the dining room, and the dictionary offers them in exactly that spirit. Sponge biscuits themselves were long available ready-made from bakers, which is why the recipe assumes a cook can simply buy three or four.