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Orange Pudding
One-half cup of sugar Two eggs One pint of milk One orange Three tablespoons of Larkin Corn Starch Moisten the Corn Starch in a small portion of the milk. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar. Scald the milk and add to it the grated rind of the orange, the corn starch, eggs, and sugar, and orange-juice in the order named. When cooked pour into a puddingdish. Cover with a meringue made from the whites of the eggs and one-half cup of sugar. Brown in the oven, and serve cold.
A cornstarch blancmange flavored with orange and finished with a meringue cap. Everything hinges on when the orange juice goes in: acid meets scalded milk badly, and the starch has to be fully cooked before the juice arrives.
- Add the juice last, off the heatAdd the juice last -- the recipe's "in the order named" puts the orange juice at the end, though it goes into the pan before cooking. Safer to cook the milk, starch, yolks and sugar until thick and glossy and then stir the juice in off the heat: acid meeting hot milk can curdle it, and acid can weaken an already set starch.
- Larkin Corn StarchA house brand sold by the Larkin Company of Buffalo; any modern cornstarch substitutes measure for measure. Three tablespoons to a pint of milk gives a spoonable pudding, not a sliceable mold.
- Slurry, then temperMoistening the starch in cold milk is not optional, and the yolk-sugar mixture should be let down with a ladle of the hot milk before it joins the pan, or you will get threads of cooked egg.
- "When cooked"Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens and then bubbles lazily for about a minute. Cornstarch needs to reach a full boil briefly to lose its raw taste and reach full thickening power.
- Oven for the meringueThe book assumes a cook who can judge her own range. Use 350F for 12 to 15 minutes, or 400F for 6 to 8 if you want a darker cap with a softer interior.
- Grate the rind firstZest the orange before you cut it for juice, and take only the colored layer. The white pith underneath is bitter and there is nothing in this pudding to hide it.
- YieldRoughly three cups of pudding, more once the meringue is piled on; serves four to six in a shallow dish that gives enough surface for the meringue.
- Serving coldChill it uncovered or the meringue will weep. It is best within a few hours; by the next day the meringue has begun to slump and bead.
Cornstarch puddings like this one are often said to have been a mainstay dessert of American households through the second half of the nineteenth century, once refined corn starch became cheap and widely sold in boxes. The naming of a specific brand in the ingredient list marks this as a manufacturer's premium cookbook rather than a general one: the Larkin Company of Buffalo built an enormous mail-order business selling soap and groceries direct to households, often bundling recipe booklets and household goods as inducements, and its own corn starch is duly written into the recipe. The dish itself belongs to the older tradition of blancmange and "moulded" milk puddings thickened with starch instead of eggs alone, and the meringue lid parallels that of queen of puddings and lemon pie. Orange appears here as a mild luxury, and the recipe wastes none of it, using rind and juice both."