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United States Pudding
Boil three-quarters of a pint of new milk with three ounces of fresh butter and half a tea-cupful of sugar. Stir in six ounces of corn-flour, pour the pudding into a bowl, and beat it briskly for some minutes. When it is almost cold, mix with it first the yolks, and afterwards the well-whisked whites, of four eggs. Butter a pudding-basin, and fill it with alternate layers of the cornflour paste thus prepared and jam, and let paste constitute the uppermost and undermost layers. Lay a round of oiled paper on the top of the pudding, and steam it over fast-boiling water till done enough. If preferred, the pudding may be baked in a brisk oven instead of being steamed. Serve with wine or brandy sauce in a tureen. Time to steam the pudding, one hour; to bake it, three-quarters of an hour.
A steamed cornflour pudding layered with jam, from a British book using British terms — the first point below is the one that decides whether this works at all.
- Corn-flour is cornstarchIn a British cookery book of this period "corn-flour" means cornstarch, not cornmeal and not maize flour. Six ounces of cornstarch is about 1 1/3 cups; substituting cornmeal gives a gritty, entirely different pudding.
- Imperial measuresThree-quarters of an imperial pint is 15 fl oz, a little under two US cups. A tea-cupful in books of this period is usually reckoned at about 5 fl oz, so half of one is roughly 1/3 cup of sugar.
- The paste will be very stiffThat ratio of starch to milk produces something closer to a firm choux-like paste than a batter. Cook it until it pulls away from the pan in one mass, and expect to work at it with a wooden spoon during the beating.
- Cool before the eggs"Almost cold" is not fussiness — yolks stirred into hot starch paste will scramble in streaks. Let it drop to lukewarm, beat in the yolks one at a time, then fold the whisked whites in last so the pudding lifts a little.
- Oven temperatureA brisk oven is usually reckoned at around 400-425F; the book itself gives no temperature. For a rich egg mixture in a basin, the lower end is safer; if the top colours before the centre sets, cover it loosely.
- The basin and the paperA pudding-basin is a deep round ceramic bowl with sloping sides; this quantity wants one of about two pints. Oiled paper is paper brushed with butter or oil; pleat it so the pudding can rise, and tie it down or the condensate will run in.
- SteamingStand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a pan with water halfway up its sides, lid on, and top up with boiling water as it goes. One hour is right for a basin of this size; the pudding is done when a skewer comes out clean of raw paste.
- Yield and sauceServes four to six. Wine or brandy sauce here is a sweet pouring sauce — butter, sugar and spirit thickened with a little of the same starch — served hot in a tureen alongside, not poured over in the kitchen.
The name says more about Victorian labelling than about American cooking: "United States" or "American" seems to have been attached to such dishes because cornstarch was strongly associated with maize and therefore with America. Refined cornstarch had become a cheap household staple after mid-century, often said to have been promoted as a light, digestible thickener suitable for invalids and children. Cassell's places this in the general run of steamed and baked puddings that closed a middle-class dinner, where the pudding-basin and the pan of fast-boiling water were as routine as the oven. The layering with jam is a standard Victorian economy — and the brandy sauce in a tureen suggests, though it does not prove, a dish for company rather than a nursery supper.