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One Lemon (Gill of Cream)
One gill of Cream.
One gill of Milk.
Half a teaspoonful of Essence of Vanilla.
Two ounces of Loaf Sugar.
A gill and a half of Water.
Put five ounces of brown bread-crumbs into a basin with the sugar, and three-quarters of a pound of cherries, stoned, the vanilla, and grated lemon-rind. Boil the milk and pour it over the crumbs and fruit. Whip the cream to a stiff froth and add it to the crumbs; add the four yolks of eggs one at a time, and the whites of two eggs whisked to a stiff froth. Butter a pint mould and pour in this mixture, cover it over with buttered paper, and steam or bake one hour and a quarter. Turn it out on to a hot dish, and serve with sauce made with two ounces of loaf sugar, a gill and a half of water, and a quarter of a pound of cherries.
A steamed cherry and brown breadcrumb pudding, written in the compressed style of a professional kitchen: the heading and opening lines list only part of what you need, and the rest of the quantities are buried in the method. Read the whole paragraph and assemble the list before you start.
- Full ingredient listWorking through the method, you need 5 oz brown breadcrumbs, 2 oz sugar, 3/4 lb stoned cherries, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, the grated rind of one lemon, 1 gill milk, 1 gill cream, 4 egg yolks and 2 egg whites. The gill and a half of water and the second 2 oz of sugar belong to the sauce, not the pudding.
- A gillAn imperial gill is 5 fl oz, so a gill of cream and a gill of milk are 5 fl oz each, and a gill and a half of water for the sauce is 7 1/2 fl oz. In US measure that is a generous half cup and a scant cup.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar sold in hard cones or lumps, valued because it was cleaner than the coarse sugars of the day. Granulated sugar substitutes directly by weight.
- Brown breadcrumbsCrumbs from wholemeal or brown bread, not toasted crumbs from a canister. Fresh soft crumbs give the light set the recipe expects; dried packaged crumbs will absorb the milk and turn the pudding heavy.
- Order of assemblyThe whipped cream folded into hot milk-soaked crumbs will collapse, so let the crumb mixture cool to lukewarm first before adding the cream, then the yolks one at a time and the whisked whites last, as the recipe directs.
- Steaming or bakingSteam a covered pint mould in gently simmering water reaching halfway up the sides, topping up as needed, for the full hour and a quarter. The recipe gives no oven heat; to bake, set the mould in a water bath in a gentle oven. Buttered paper works, but foil or a lid crimped over the top is more reliable.
- The sauceDissolve the sugar in the water, bring to a simmer, add the quarter pound of cherries and cook only until they soften and the syrup thickens slightly, about five minutes. Longer and the fruit disintegrates.
- YieldA pint mould serves four modestly as a hot pudding. Turn it out promptly; left standing in the mould it steams itself soggy.
Steamed and baked breadcrumb puddings were often said to be a mainstay of Victorian sweet courses, since bread was always to hand and crumbs gave body without the expense of much flour or the labour of pastry. The brown-bread version, enriched with cream, egg and a fruit sauce, has a strong resemblance to the German Brotpudding and the Austrian breadcrumb desserts, though any direct line of descent is a matter of conjecture rather than record. The garbled title here is telling, and it may be that the heading has preserved a stray line of an ingredient list rather than the name of the dish, which would explain how the lemon rind and the gill of cream came to stand in for a cherry pudding.