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Norwegian Prune Pudding
A One pound of prunes, one quart of water, two cups of sugar, five tablespoons of cornstarch, a small piece of stick cinnamon. Soak the prunes in cold water over night, and boil in the same water.
Stone, add one pint of water, put on to cook again, and while boiling, add sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch mixed with a little cold water. Boil five minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in a mold to cool. - Mrs William Christie Herron.
A molded fruit starch pudding of the Scandinavian type, and one of the easier old desserts to bring off — the only real variable is how firmly it sets.
- The hinge: slake the cornstarchFive tablespoons of cornstarch stirred into a little cold water makes a smooth slurry; dumped in dry it will seize into lumps that no amount of stirring will fix. Add it in a thin stream to the boiling fruit while whisking.
- Boil it, and mean itThe five minutes of boiling is not optional. Cornstarch reaches full thickening power only at a rolling boil, and undercooked starch leaves a raw, chalky taste and a pudding that weeps as it chills.
- Liquid quantitiesA quart of soaking water plus a pint more comes to roughly six cups, though the prunes absorb a good deal overnight, so less liquid than that actually goes into the pan. Five tablespoons of starch to that much liquid is a modest proportion; expect a soft set rather than a stiff one, and judge before trusting it to turn out of a mold.
- PrunesOne pound is about 2½ cups of whole dried plums. Modern pitted prunes are already stoned and are sold moist-packed, so an overnight soak is unnecessary — two hours, or a simmer straight from the package, is enough. If you use pitted fruit, keep the full quart of water.
- SugarTwo cups is heavy by modern taste; ¾ to 1 cup gives a tarter pudding.
- The cinnamonA stick, not ground — it perfumes the syrup without clouding it. Fish it out before pouring into the mold.
- Molding and chillingRinse the mold with cold water and do not dry it; the film of moisture lets the pudding release cleanly. It needs at least four hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is better. Press plastic wrap to the surface or a skin will form.
- Yield and servingMakes about six servings. Scandinavian practice is to serve it cold with cold milk, thin cream, or lightly whipped unsweetened cream poured around rather than on top.
This is a plain American rendering of the Norwegian sviskegrøt — literally prune porridge — one of a family of Scandinavian sweet fruit puddings and soups (fruktsuppe, rødgrøt) thickened with starch and eaten cold with milk or cream. In Norway the thickener was often potato starch, which sets glossier and more translucent; cornstarch was the usual American substitute and gives a slightly cloudier, softer set. Dried prunes were a winter staple in northern Europe because they kept well and rehydrated into something sweet and syrupy at a season when fresh fruit was scarce, and the overnight soak here suits the harder, more heavily dried fruit of the period. The recipe is credited to a contributor, Mrs William Christie Herron, in the manner of a collection assembled from readers' family and community dishes — with "Norwegian" doing the work of a provenance.