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Orange Pudding (Slice four oranges cover)
Slice four oranges, cover with sugar.
For the Pudding-One pint of milk, yolks of two eggs, two tablespoons of cornstarch, one-half cup of sugar. Cook, and when cold pour over the oranges. Beat the whites of two eggs with three tablespoons of sugar, cover top of pudding, and brown in oven.
— Mrs. Hamilton J. Jones
A cornstarch custard poured over sugared oranges and finished with meringue — the sort of thing that appears under a dozen names in turn-of-the-century community cookbooks. The written method is compressed, and two of its silences matter.
- Cool the custard, but not to fridge-cold"When cold" is the hinge. Hot custard poured over sugared oranges draws out juice and the whole thing separates into a watery layer under a set one. Let it cool to just barely warm, stirring once or twice to keep a skin from forming, then pour.
- Prepare the oranges properlySlicing four oranges means peeling them, removing all white pith and any seeds, and cutting them crosswise into rounds — or better, cutting out the segments free of membrane. The membrane turns tough and stringy under a custard. Drain off the juice the sugar pulls out before the custard goes on.
- Sugar on the orangesNo amount is given. About 1/4 cup over four oranges is right; more and the dish is cloying, since there is another half cup in the custard and three tablespoons in the meringue.
- Cooking the cornstarchWhisk the cornstarch and sugar into the cold milk before heating, temper in the yolks, then bring to a full boil for a minute while stirring. Cornstarch does not reach full thickening power until it boils, and undercooked cornstarch tastes chalky.
- "Brown in oven"No temperature or time is given. A fairly hot oven, watched closely, is enough to colour the meringue peaks without cooking the custard again; a few minutes will do it. Beat the whites to soft peaks first, adding the sugar gradually, and spread the meringue so it touches the rim of the dish all round, which stops it shrinking and sliding.
- The dishAssemble in something ovenproof — a glass or earthenware baking dish holding about a quart and a half. A decorative bowl will not survive the oven.
- Serving and yieldSix modest servings. Best eaten the day it is made: meringue on a moist base weeps within a few hours, and refrigerating it overnight leaves beads of syrup on top.
Orange pudding of this type belongs to the great age of cornstarch, which became widely available in American kitchens from the 1840s onward and gave home cooks a cheap, reliable thickener. The pattern here — fruit at the bottom, thickened milk over it, meringue on top — is the same architecture as lemon meringue pie without the crust, and similar puddings appear under "orange," "lemon," "banana" and "cocoanut" in community cookbooks of the period. Oranges themselves signal something about the era: Florida and California fruit moved north by rail in winter, so four of them in a pudding need not have been an extravagance. The attribution to Mrs. Hamilton J. Jones is typical of the genre, in which contributed recipes were signed by name.