Fig Pudding
2 1/2 cups milk 1 cup fig marmalade 1/3 cup sugar 2 eggs 2/3 cup crumbs of stale bread 1/6 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Heat the milk. Make the fig marmalade by putting steamed figs through the food chopper. Add the marmalade, sugar, crumbs, salt, and vanilla to the hot milk. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add them. Mix well. Put into a baking pan in which it will be about 1 1/4 inches deep. Set the pan in a pan of hot water, and bake till set. When done, beat the two egg whites, fold into them three tablespoons sugar, and spread on top of the pudding. Put into the oven and brown lightly.
This is a baked bread-and-milk custard flavoured with pureed figs, finished with a thin meringue. The hinge is the water bath: the pudding must set gently or the custard curdles and weeps.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none; bake gently, in the region of 325-350F. Above that the egg proteins tighten and the custard turns grainy and watery even in a water bath.
- The water bathSet the filled pan in a larger pan and pour in hot water to come roughly halfway up the sides. Because the pudding is only about 1 1/4 inches deep, expect it to be set in 30-40 minutes; a knife inserted near the centre should come out clean with only a faint film.
- Fig marmaladeNo preserve is meant here. Steam dried figs until plump and soft, trim the hard stems, and grind them; a food processor replaces the food chopper. Steam and grind enough figs to make up the cup called for -- the dried weight needed varies with how much water the fruit takes up.
- Bread crumbsStale, not dried out to sand. Soft crumbs torn from day-old white bread absorb the milk and give the pudding body; packaged dry crumbs will make it dense.
- That 1/6 teaspoonAn odd fraction of the sort that turns up in older receipts. Read it as a scant 1/4 teaspoon.
- The meringueBeat the whites to soft peaks before folding in the 3 tablespoons sugar. Return to the oven only until the peaks colour, a few minutes; longer and the meringue shrinks and beads.
- Yield and servingEnough for six modest servings in an 8-inch square pan. Serve warm or at room temperature, not chilled, or the fig flavour flattens.