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Peach Custard Pudding
Use large peaches, pare, and remove a slice across the tops; take pits out without breaking fruit; fill hollows with any chopped fruit, as apples or citron, angelica or raisins, Sprinkle with sugar and a Make a custard with three adding also nuts if liked. little cinnamon or nutmeg. beaten eggs and a cup each of flour and sugar. Pour this over the peaches and bake; or, cook the custard; cool; pour over the peaches and serve chilled.
The text as printed has been scrambled by the typesetter or the scanner — clauses from two sentences are interleaved. Read in order, it says: pare large peaches, cut a slice from the top, remove the pit without breaking the fruit, fill the hollow with chopped fruit (apple, citron, angelica, raisins) and nuts if liked, sprinkle with sugar and a little cinnamon or nutmeg, then make a custard of three beaten eggs with a cup each of flour and sugar, pour it over and bake — or cook the custard separately, cool it, and pour it over the fruit to serve chilled.
- The custard is missing its liquidThree eggs, a cup of flour and a cup of sugar is a batter, not a custard, and there is no milk in the printed list; without liquid the mixture cannot be poured. Comparable baked custard puddings of the period generally call for milk by the cupful, but the amount is genuinely absent from this text rather than something to be guessed precisely.
- A cup of flour is a lotEven with milk added, a cup of flour to three eggs gives a firm, cake-like pudding rather than a soft set. If you want the loose custard the second method implies, the flour belongs at a tablespoon or two, thickening milk and eggs on the stove.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given; the recipe says only "bake." As a modern working figure, try 350F for roughly 40 to 50 minutes, until the centre is just set and a knife comes out clean.
- Peeling the peaches"Pare" means peel. Freestone peaches at full ripeness will give up their pits cleanly if you cut around the top and lift the stone out with the point of a knife; clingstones will not, and are the wrong fruit for this. A 30-second dip in boiling water loosens the skins.
- Citron and angelicaCitron here is candied citron peel, not the modern lemon-like fruit sold under that name. Candied angelica stem is now a specialist item; chopped candied orange peel or glacé cherries do the same job of sweet, slightly resinous contrast.
- The pitsDiscard them. Peach kernels contain amygdalin and were sometimes used in old recipes as a bitter-almond flavouring; there is no reason to do that here, and no safe home measure for it.
- The chilled versionFor the cold method, cook the custard to 175-180F on the stove, stirring, then cool it fully before pouring over the stuffed peaches. Assemble no more than a few hours ahead or the peeled fruit will weep and discolour.
- YieldOne large stuffed peach per person; six peaches will fill a 9-inch dish.
Stuffed baked peaches belong to a broad nineteenth-century family of "fruit in custard" puddings, in which a batter or egg custard was poured over whole or halved fruit and baked — the same idea behind clafoutis in France and batter puddings of apple or cherry in Britain and America. What dates this version is the filling: candied citron, angelica and raisins were pantry staples of the well-stocked Victorian household, expensive enough to signal a company dish and dry enough to keep for months, which is why they turn up in recipes for fresh summer fruit as readily as in Christmas cake. Two endings are offered here: bake it, or cook the custard and serve it chilled.