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Wafer Puddings
Beat an ounce of butter to cream, and mix with it a table-spoonful of flour, a table-spoonful of cream, and the well-beaten yolks of two eggs. A little flavouring may be added if liked. Butter some patty-pans, half fill them with the batter, and cover with the whites of the eggs whisked to a firm froth. Sprinkle a little powdered white sugar upon them, and bake in a well-heated oven. When done enough, turn them upon a hot napkin, and send jam or sweet sauce to table with them. Time to bake the puddings, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for four or five puddings.
A tiny, very rich batter — barely more than two yolks enriched with butter and cream — baked in small tins under a meringue cap. The whole batch fills four or five patty-pans, so read the quantities as written rather than assuming an omission.
- The hinge: whip the whites lastThe whites must go on as a firm, freshly whisked froth and straight into the oven. Whites beaten early weep and slump, and the topping bakes to a flat skin instead of a crisp meringue crust.
- Patty-pansShallow tartlet or bun tins, roughly 2 to 2½ inches across; a shallow bun tin is the nearest modern equivalent. Half-fill only, since the batter puffs and the meringue needs room.
- "A well-heated oven"The book gives no temperature; somewhere around 375-400°F is a reasonable modern reading. Hot enough to set the batter and colour the meringue within the quarter hour given, but not so hot that the sugared whites scorch before the centres set.
- Butter beaten to creamRoom-temperature butter creamed until pale and soft, before any other ingredient goes in. One ounce is two tablespoons.
- No sugar in the batterAll the sweetness comes from the sugar sprinkled on the whites and from the jam or sauce served alongside. The puddings themselves are nearly savoury, which is why the accompaniment is not optional.
- "A little flavouring"Probably a few drops of vanilla or lemon essence, grated lemon rind, or a little brandy; the recipe does not specify.
- Powdered white sugarNineteenth-century powdered sugar is finely ground granulated, closer to today's caster sugar than to cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar. Caster gives the crisper meringue surface.
- Turning out on a napkinA folded cloth on the serving dish absorbs butter from the tins and stops the puddings sliding. They are fragile hot; loosen the edges with a knife tip before inverting.
- YieldFour or five very small puddings — one or two per person as part of a larger dinner, not a dessert for four on its own. Double or triple the batter if serving them as the sole sweet course.
The small baked puddings like this one are a spoonful of enriched batter in a buttered tin, capped with meringue and out of the oven in fifteen minutes. The name may point to thinness and delicacy, though a connection to the wafer irons that produced communion wafers and the thin rolled biscuits sold at fairs cannot be ruled out. The construction uses both parts of the egg — yolks bind and enrich the body, whites are whipped for the top. The costing in pence and the instruction to "send jam or sweet sauce to table" belong to a book written around a set schedule of courses, in which a small hot pudding was expected to appear.