Puff-paste

This is a baked batter pudding set over jam in a puff-paste case, not a recipe for puff paste itself — the title comes from the crust. Note before you start that the quantities have been left behind in the book's ingredient column, so this reads as a method rather than a complete formula.

• The missing quantitiesButter, flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and lemon rind are all named but none is measured here. Any amount given for them would be invented; work from a batter proportion you already trust rather than guessing at the author's.
• Typical proportions of the periodPuddings of this class commonly used roughly equal weights of butter, sugar and flour, with eggs and a little baking powder. That is a general family resemblance only, not a reading of this recipe, and not a documented rule.
• Oven heatThe recipe specifies no oven heat, only an hour and a quarter. As modern guidance rather than anything in the text: puff paste wants a hotter start, so around 400F for the first ten minutes to set and lift the pastry, then down to about 350F for the remainder.
• "Beat the butter to a cream"This means creaming softened butter until pale and aerated, and it is the hinge of the recipe. The baking powder is a support; the lift comes mostly from air beaten into the butter and from the eggs, so a cold, stiff butter gives a heavy pudding.
• Adding the eggsStir the beaten eggs in gradually and alternate with a little of the flour. Added all at once to creamed butter they curdle the mixture, which coarsens the crumb.
• Pie-dish and pasteA Victorian pie-dish is an oval earthenware dish, made in a range of sizes; the recipe does not say which. Line the sides as well as the bottom, and do not prick the base -- the jam needs a sealed floor.
• The jam layerUse a thick, well-set preserve and spread it thinly. A loose jam will boil up through the batter over an hour's baking and soak the pastry.
• Lemon rindFinely grated zest only, no pith, and rub it into the sugar before creaming so the oils are released into the fat.
• Yield and servingWith no quantities given, the yield cannot be worked out from the text; it depends entirely on the dish and batter you settle on. It belongs on the table hot, with custard or a thin sweet sauce; it collapses somewhat as it cools.