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Windsor Pudding
Pare and core half a dozen cooking apples, and boil or bake them till quite soft. Beat them to a smooth pulp, and with them an ounce of best Carolina rice boiled in milk till it is tender, an ounce of powdered white sugar, a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a pinch of grated lemon-rind. Whisk the whites of four eggs to snow, stir them into the pudding mixture, and beat it again till it is very light. Dip a pudding-mould into boiling water, take it out, and whilst it is hot pour the mixture into it; cover it, put it into a large pan of boiling water, and keep it boiling till the white of the egg is firm. Turn the pudding out, and pour round it a custard made with the yolks of the eggs. Serve immediately.
A steamed apple snow pudding, light enough that its success rests almost entirely on how the whisked whites are handled and how gently the mould is heated. Nothing here is difficult, but the quantities are Victorian-frugal and the method assumes a coal range and a cook standing over it.
- The hinge: keep the water below a rolling boilThe instruction to "keep it boiling" is best read loosely; a hard boil risks toughening the whites and collapsing the pudding. Hold the surrounding water at a bare simmer, around 180-190F, so the pudding sets rather than inflating and falling.
- Half a dozen cooking applesBramleys or another tart cooking variety; six will run to roughly 2 to 3 lb before paring, giving something over a pound of pulp. Bake them rather than boil if you can; boiled apples carry water into the mixture and slacken it.
- Carolina riceA long-grain white rice shipped from the Carolina Low Country and much prized in British kitchens for puddings. Any plain long-grain or pudding rice works; one ounce is about two tablespoons dry, simmered in half a cup of milk until completely soft, then cooled before it meets the whites.
- An ounce of sugarAbout two tablespoons for the whole pudding, which will read as barely sweet against cooking apples. Two to three ounces suits modern palates, and the custard can carry more of the sweetness.
- Whisking and folding"Beat it again till it is very light" is misleading. Whisk the whites to soft, glossy peaks, then fold them into the cooled apple and rice in thirds; vigorous beating after the whites go in destroys the aeration the pudding depends on.
- The heated mouldDipping the mould in boiling water and filling it hot keeps the mixture from chilling and sticking. Butter it well, fill no more than three-quarters full, and cover with buttered paper or foil tied down, or the pudding will rise into the lid.
- TimingNo time is given. Expect 45 minutes to an hour for a pint-and-a-half mould; it is done when the centre is set and springs back to a light touch. Let it stand five minutes before turning out, or it will slump.
- The custardFour yolks to about half a pint (1 cup) of milk or single cream, with a little sugar, stirred over low heat to 175-180F until it coats the back of a spoon. It must not boil.
- YieldServes four to six as written, and it will not wait: a whisked-white pudding begins to weep and slump soon after turning out, which is presumably why the original says serve immediately.
Windsor Pudding belongs to the large family of nineteenth-century "snow" puddings, in which fruit pulp is lightened with whisked egg white and set gently over water rather than baked. Puddings named for royal residences and towns are common in Victorian cookery books, and no royal origin is recorded for this one. The economy of the thing is characteristic: six apples, an ounce of rice and an ounce of sugar stretch four eggs into a dish for a whole table, and the yolks left over from the whites are turned straight into the accompanying custard so that nothing is wasted. The specification of Carolina rice is a useful period marker, as British cooks bought rice by its port of origin, and Carolina long-grain was often said to be the best for puddings well into the later nineteenth century.