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Prune Pudding
Cook prunes and mince. Soften ½ package gelatine in ¼ cup water, and add 1 cup of hot strained juice from the prunes, also 1 cup sugar,½ cup mixed lemon and orange juice. Cool and add 1 pint whipped cream. Put in mould.
May be used for charlotte or cake filling with whipped cream flavoured with almond essence.
Despite its place under Boiled Puddings, this is a cold gelatine cream — nothing is boiled and nothing is baked. The whole thing depends on getting the gelatine fully dissolved before the cream goes in.
- The half package of gelatineGelatine then came in boxes of envelopes holding roughly a tablespoon (about ¼ oz) each, so "½ package" most likely means half an envelope — but the wording is genuinely ambiguous and could mean half a box. For the volume of liquid here, one modern 7 g envelope is the sensible reading; half that will not hold a moulded shape.
- Bloom, then dissolveSprinkle the gelatine over the ¼ cup cold water and leave it five minutes to swell, then stir in the hot prune juice until no grains remain on a spoon back. Juice near boiling is fine for dissolving; prolonged boiling weakens the set.
- When to add the prunesThe recipe never says. Fold the minced prunes in with the whipped cream, once the jelly has cooled to the thickness of raw egg white, or they sink to the bottom of the mould.
- Cool means barely tepidIf the gelatine mixture is still warm, the whipped cream deflates and separates into a foam layer over clear jelly. Chill until it just begins to thicken at the edges, then fold.
- Prunes and juicePrunes are dried plums, sold under that name now. Simmer about 1 lb in water to cover for 20-30 minutes, until soft enough to mince after pitting; that yields the cup of strained juice the recipe wants.
- The sugarA full cup is period-sweet against already sweet prune juice. Two-thirds of a cup suits most palates, and the lemon and orange juice do more for balance than the sugar does.
- Setting and unmouldingRinse the mould with cold water first, and give it at least six hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. Dip the mould briefly in warm water and wipe it before turning out.
- YieldA pint of cream whips to about a quart, so the finished mixture runs to roughly 2 quarts — eight to ten servings, or enough to fill and cover a layer cake as the note suggests.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses flour, and was assembled largely from recipes contributed by Canadian users of the flour. Prunes were a staple of the northern pantry: cheap, shelf-stable, sweet enough to carry a dessert on their own, and available year-round in a country where fresh fruit was not. The suggestion to use the mixture "for charlotte" points to the charlotte russe, then a fashionable way to line a mould with ladyfingers or sponge and fill it with a gelatine-set cream, a form generally traced to the early nineteenth-century French kitchen and popularised in English-language cookbooks through the Victorian period.