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Zandrina Pudding
Pick some fresh ripe raspberries. Put them into a jar and cover closely; set the fruit in the oven, in a tin of boiling water, and keep the water boiling round it till the juice flows freely. Boil it with half its weight of sugar to a syrup, and let it get cold. If fresh fruit can-not be procured, a jar of raspberry jam may be dissolved, mixed with a little thin syrup, and rubbed through a sieve. Beat six ounces of fresh butter to cream; work in six ounces of powdered white sugar, six ounces of dried flour, and the well-beaten yolks of six eggs. Whisk the whites of the eggs to snow, and add them to the mixture, together with a wine-glassful of the raspberry syrup. Pour the mixture into a buttered mould which it will quite fill, put the cover on it, and put it in a saucepan, containing boiling water to the depth of three inches of thereabouts, according to the depth of the mould. Keep the water boiling round the pudding until it is done enough. Take it up, let it stand a minute or two, and turn it out carefully upon a hot dish. Serve, with a little of the syrup whisked with an equal quantity of thick cream, poured round it. If liked, the pudding may be baked instead of being steamed. Time to steam the pudding, an hour and a half. Probable cost, exclusive of the sauce, two shillings. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A steamed raspberry sponge in the classic Victorian mould-and-saucepan style. The syrup is made first and used both in the batter and in the sauce, so start there.
- Extracting the juiceThe jar of berries standing in a tin of boiling water in the oven is a bain-marie for drawing juice without scorching; a covered heatproof jar or bowl in a roasting tin of simmering water does the same. The recipe gives no temperature or time, only the instruction to keep the water boiling round the jar until the juice flows freely. Strain, then boil the juice with half its weight in sugar until lightly syrupy.
- The jam shortcutWarming a jar of raspberry jam with a little thin sugar syrup and sieving out the seeds gives a workable substitute, as the recipe directs.
- Dried flourFlour was warmed by the fire or in a cool oven to drive off damp before being weighed. With modern packaged flour this step is unnecessary; use plain flour straight from the bag.
- Powdered white sugarThis means finely ground granulated sugar, what is now sold as caster sugar. It does not mean confectioners' or icing sugar, which contains starch and will change the texture.
- A wine-glassfulRoughly 2 fl oz, about a quarter cup. Anything much more will loosen the batter and the pudding will not set cleanly.
- The mouldSix ounces each of butter, sugar and flour with six eggs makes roughly a quart to a quart and a half of batter, depending on how far the whites are whisked; the recipe's own test is that the mixture should quite fill the mould. A lidded pudding basin or charlotte mould of that size, well buttered, is right; if the lid does not clamp, tie on buttered parchment and foil pleated down the middle to allow rise.
- SteamingThree inches of water around the mould, kept at a steady simmer rather than a hard boil, and topped up from a kettle so it never runs dry. An hour and a half is accurate; a skewer to the centre should come out clean.
- Baking insteadThe recipe allows the pudding to be baked instead of steamed but gives no temperature or time; a moderate oven and a test with a skewer are the only guide. Baked, the result is drier and more cake-like than the steamed version.
- Turning out and servingLet it stand a minute or two, as the recipe says, so the sponge pulls away from the sides, then invert onto a warm dish. The sauce is simply equal parts of the raspberry syrup and thick cream whisked together, poured around rather than over. Serves six or seven.
Cassell's included a great many named puddings, and Zandrina is one of them, though the book gives no clue as to who or what was meant. What the recipe does show clearly is the mid-Victorian steamed sponge at full strength: equal weights of butter, sugar and flour, six eggs, and no chemical raising at all, the lift coming entirely from creamed butter and separately whisked whites. The raspberry element reflects a household that still put up its own fruit syrups, and the recipe is willing to substitute a jar of jam thinned and sieved. The costing of two shillings is given as a matter of course.