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Orange Marmalade Pudding
Mix together two tablespoonfuls or one glass of orange marmalade with one heaping tablespoon of flour, the yolks of three eggs and whites of two, a pinch of salt, and sugar if necessary (according to sweetness of marmalade). Bake in a pudding-dish half an hour and when done dot the top with meringue made from the stiff-beaten white of the egg and a half-cup of sugar.
A small baked pudding closer to a sweet soufflé-omelette than to a steamed pudding, and the sparest kind of nineteenth-century instruction: no dish size, no temperature, no yield. A few things need pinning down before it will work.
- How much marmalade"Two tablespoonfuls or one glass" is not an equivalence: period glass measures varied, but any jelly or tumbler glass would hold several times the spoon measure. The larger amount gives a pudding with real orange flavour; start at 1/3 to 1/2 cup and omit added sugar unless the marmalade is unusually tart.
- There is no liquidAs written the batter is marmalade, flour, and egg only, so it bakes to a light, firm custard-cake rather than a spoonable pudding. Other baked marmalade puddings add milk or cream; if you want a soft pudding rather than a puffed one, that is the change to make.
- Oven heatA pudding of this kind wants a moderate oven, 350F. Higher and the eggs curdle at the edges before the centre sets.
- Dish and depthUse a shallow buttered dish — a 1-quart gratin dish or two large ramekins. Spread thin: half an hour is only enough for a shallow pudding, and a deep one will still be liquid in the middle.
- The spare egg whiteThree yolks and two whites go into the batter; the third white is the meringue. Keep it aside from the start rather than trying to separate it later.
- Meringue proportionsA half cup of sugar to one white is very sweet and slow to beat stiff. Two to three tablespoons per white is the modern ratio.
- Setting the meringueReturn the dotted pudding to the oven, lowered to about 325F, for 10 to 15 minutes until the peaks are dry and lightly coloured. A brief blast under a broiler browns the tips but leaves the interior of the meringue raw and weeping.
- YieldThree eggs and a half cup of marmalade serve three, four at a stretch. Serve warm; it deflates and firms as it cools.
Marmalade puddings belong to a large family of late-Victorian and Edwardian "economy" sweets built on the store cupboard: a jar of preserve, a few eggs, a spoon of flour, and nothing else bought specially. Bitter Seville oranges arrived in Britain in a short midwinter season and were boiled with sugar into a keeping preserve, which by the nineteenth century was manufactured on an industrial scale in Dundee. The word marmalade comes through French from Portuguese marmelada, a quince paste, and only settled onto citrus in English usage.