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Orange Pudding
2 eggs, 1 cupful milk, 1 tablespoonful corn starch, 1 1/2 cupfuls sugar. Cook all this except the whites of the eggs, and when cool pour over 2 oranges sliced in the bottom of a dish. Beat the whites, add 1/2 cupful sugar and put over the pudding, then slice 1 orange over this, and set in oven to brown.
A stovetop cornstarch custard poured over sliced oranges and finished under a meringue — essentially a citrus version of the meringue-topped puddings that fill this section. The whole thing is assembled cold and only briefly heated to colour the top.
- The hinge: cook the starch outWhisk the cornstarch into the cold milk before heating, add the beaten yolks off the boil, and hold the mixture at a bare simmer for a full minute after it thickens. Starch pulled too early tastes chalky and will thin out again as it sits on the fruit.
- SugarA cup and a half of sugar to one cup of milk is very sweet even by period standards, and another half cup goes into the meringue. Two-thirds of a cup in the custard gives a pudding most modern palates will prefer; the meringue sugar should stay as written, since it is what makes the foam stable.
- Temper the yolksThe recipe says only "cook all this except the whites." Add a ladle of the hot milk to the beaten yolks first, then return everything to the pan, or the eggs will scramble in the starch.
- Oven for browningThe recipe gives neither temperature nor time, only "set in oven to brown." A moderate oven is the safest modern reading; the meringue needs long enough to set rather than merely take colour, and a very hot oven risks scorching the peaks while the base stays soft and weeping.
- The orangesPeel to the flesh, remove all white pith, and slice crosswise; blot the slices on a towel before laying them in the dish. Excess juice will thin the custard from below and make the meringue slide.
- Oranges on top of meringueThe final sliced orange over the whites is unusual and will release juice as it heats, pocking the surface. Arranging the slices after browning, or overlapping them at the edge only, keeps the meringue dry.
- Dish and yieldA dish of about a quart suits the quantities, ideally shallow so the meringue has surface area. The recipe gives no yield; four servings is a fair estimate. Best eaten the day it is made, as the fruit juice and acid will tend to loosen both custard and meringue.