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Light Bread Pudding
Pour some boiling-hot milk on a few thin slices of white bread or the crumb of French rolls; when cold beat up 1 whole egg and the yolks of 2 others; mix them well with the bread, adding a small portion of grated nutmeg, lemon peel, and as much white powdered sugar as will make it palatable. A few picked currants may be sometimes added. Put the preparation into a pudding-basin slightly rubbed over the butter, and cover the top with a piece of buttered paper; then place the basin in a saucepan containing boiling water, and let the pudding steam for half an hour or more, according to its size.
A small steamed custard-and-bread pudding from the sickroom chapter, deliberately bland and easy to eat. Two details carry it: the milk must be properly cold before the eggs go in, and the water around the basin should never come back to a hard boil.
- Cool the milk fullyThe instruction "when cold" is not incidental. Hot milk poured onto beaten egg scrambles it, and the pudding sets grainy instead of smooth. Soak the bread, then let it sit until no warmer than room temperature before mixing in the eggs.
- Steam, do not boilSteam gently -- the recipe puts the basin in a saucepan of boiling water. In practice keep it at a steady simmer rather than a violent rolling boil, with the water partway up the basin and the pan covered, topping up with more boiling water as it evaporates. Hard boiling risks splashing water into the pudding and a coarse, weeping texture.
- Quantities and scaleThe recipe specifies no milk quantity or basin size. One whole egg plus two yolks with a few thin slices of bread would suit a basin of roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups (500-600 ml), with about a cup of milk; on that scale it serves one or two.
- Buttered paperThe buttered paper is a lid that lets a little steam escape while keeping condensation off the surface. Parchment tied with string does the same job; foil alone traps drips, so pleat it or set parchment underneath.
- White powdered sugarIn books of this period this means finely ground white sugar, what is now sold as caster or superfine. Modern powdered or icing sugar contains cornstarch; use caster or ordinary granulated instead, about 1 to 2 tablespoons.
- Lemon peelPare the yellow zest thinly with no white pith, and either grate it or add a strip and remove it after soaking. Pith turns the pudding bitter, which defeats the purpose of an invalid dish.
- "Picked" currantsPicked means gone over by hand to remove stalks, stray stems and grit. Dried currants today are already cleaned, but a rinse and a brief soak in warm water keeps them from drawing moisture out of the custard.
- Timing and testHalf an hour suits a small basin; a larger one may want 45 to 55 minutes. It is done when the centre is just set and barely trembles, and a knife slipped in comes out clean. Let it stand five minutes before turning out.
- French rollsThe "crumb of French rolls" means the soft interior of a plain white roll with the crust removed. Any tender white bread, a day old, does the same; enriched brioche-style bread makes it richer than intended here.
Large domestic manuals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries commonly carried a chapter of invalid cookery, written on the assumption that the sick were fed at home and that their food should be soft, mild, and free of anything thought hard to digest. Steaming in a covered basin set in a pan of water was a standard method for such dishes, since it cooks gently and cannot scorch, and the same technique served for everything from savoury custards to the boiled puddings of the period. This pudding sits in a long British line of bread-and-milk foods alongside panada and bread-and-butter pudding, in which stale bread and a little egg were made to stretch into something nourishing. The currants are offered as an occasional addition -- the recipe says only that they "may be sometimes added", and gives no reason.