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Frozen Pudding
Make one quart of rich custard, cool and add one glass of currant jelly, one ounce of chopped citron, one-fourth pound of candied fruit, cut fine one ounce of blanched and split pistachio nuts, juice of one lemon, mix well and stir in slowly one-half pint of whipped cream; freeze and pack for several hours.
— Mrs. J. B. Hall
A late-nineteenth-century frozen pudding in the old sense: a rich custard ice studded with candied fruit and nuts, churned and then ripened in ice and salt. Nothing here is difficult, but the original assumes a hand-crank freezer and a cook who knows what "rich custard" means.
- Rich custardPeriod recipes for a rich custard generally run to something like 6 to 8 egg yolks and sugar per quart of milk or thin cream, though proportions vary a good deal; cook to the coating stage (around 170-175F if you use a thermometer) and strain. Cool it fully before anything else goes in.
- One glass of jellyJelly glasses and tumblers of the era varied, commonly running six to eight ounces, so the measure is genuinely loose. A half cup of currant jelly is a reasonable starting point, warmed and stirred smooth so it disperses rather than freezing into rubbery streaks.
- Add the lemon last and coldAcid stirred into a warm custard can curdle it, which is presumably why the recipe says to cool first; the jelly, fruit and lemon juice go into the cold custard, and the whipped cream is folded in after that.
- Candied fruit and citronCitron here is the candied rind of the citron (Citrus medica), sold with the holiday baking supplies; candied cherries, pineapple and orange peel all suit. Chop everything to pea size or smaller, since large pieces freeze rock hard.
- PistachiosBlanched means the skins slipped off after a brief soak in boiling water, which keeps them green rather than brown. Unsalted nuts only, and split rather than chopped fine so they stay visible.
- Freeze and packChurn in an ice cream maker until thick, then transfer to a container and freeze several hours to harden. The original "pack" means burying the sealed mould in cracked ice and rock salt, which is how these puddings were both hardened and held for the table.
- Yield and servingAbout one and a half quarts, serving eight to ten. Let it stand ten minutes at room temperature before serving; a fruit-heavy custard ice cuts badly straight from a modern freezer.
Frozen pudding was a fixture of American company dinners once ice was cheap enough that a household could keep a freezer packed for an afternoon. The name is borrowed from the boiled and steamed puddings of English cookery, and the resemblance is close: candied citron, currant jelly and a pound-cake assortment of glacé fruit are the plum-pudding pantry, transferred to a custard base and frozen instead of steamed. Recipes of this kind are often traced to hotel kitchens, where a Nesselrode or frozen pudding closed the menu, and church and village receipt books like this one carried the idea into home kitchens under a contributor's name.