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Sponge-Cake Pudding
Pour boiling milk on 6 penny sponge cakes, and follow the same directions as for the bread pudding (sea "Light Bread Pudding"), sometimes adding a few muscatel raisins. Half a wineglassful of sherry or a tablespoonful of good brandy may also be added, if approved.
This is a variation rather than a standalone recipe: it borrows the custard, eggs and baking from the book's "Light Bread Pudding" and simply swaps sponge cake for bread. A few of its quantities are left to the cook's judgement.
- Penny sponge cakesSmall individual sponge cakes sold singly by bakers, roughly 1 oz each, so six is about 6 oz. Trifle sponges or ladyfingers are the closest modern equivalent; a comparable weight of plain sponge cake cut in fingers also works.
- How much milkNone is given here; the quantity would come from the parent 'Light Bread Pudding' recipe. For about 6 oz of cake, roughly a pint should be enough to soak the sponge without leaving it swimming. Pour it boiling and let the cake stand until it collapses, then break it up with a fork.
- Sponge soaks faster than breadThe hinge of the dish. Sponge cake is already sweet and aerated and will take up the milk in a few minutes; leave it longer and it turns to paste. Bread pudding directions that call for a long soak should be shortened here.
- Sugar and eggsFollow the parent recipe for the eggs, but the sugar can be cut back sharply or left out, since penny sponge cakes were already sweetened cake.
- OvenThe original gives no oven direction; the method comes from the parent bread-pudding recipe. A baked pudding of this type is usually set around 325-350F and taken out when the custard is just set and barely trembling at the centre. Standing the dish in a pan of hot water keeps the edges from curdling.
- Half a wineglassfulA Victorian wineglass was generally reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half of one is roughly 1 fl oz — some 2 tablespoons of sherry, the same order as the tablespoon of brandy offered as an alternative.
- Muscatel raisinsLarge, seeded, honey-flavoured raisins from muscat grapes. Ordinary raisins substitute directly; muscatels sold on the stem should be pitted and torn in halves first.
- YieldProbably serves three or four as written.
Invalid cookery — food for the sick and recovering — had its own chapter in many large household manuals of the late nineteenth century, on the reasoning that a patient who would not eat needed dishes that were bland, soft and slightly enriched. Sponge cake often appeared in such chapters because it was thought easy to digest. The optional sherry or brandy fits the same tradition: spirits were widely regarded as restorative for invalids, though here the recipe simply leaves the decision to the household.