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Cream Pudding
Beat six eggs to a froth and stir into them three tablespoonfuls sugar and the grated rind of a lemon. Mix one pint milk, one pound flour, and two teaspoonfuls salt. Add eggs and sugar. Just before baking, add a pint of thick cream. Bake in cups or pudding dishes.--Mrs. Col. W.
A baked custard batter of the plainest kind, but the proportions as printed need scrutiny before you commit six eggs and a pint of cream to them.
- The pound of flour is almost certainly wrongThe pound of flour looks high -- One pound of flour is roughly 3 1/2 cups. Even counting the pint of cream added at the end, so about a quart of liquid with six eggs, that gives a heavy batter rather than a custard-like pudding. Whether it is a misprint cannot be known, but if you want the body of a pouring batter, reduce the flour.
- Two teaspoonfuls of saltThat is a great deal for a sweet pudding with only three tablespoons of sugar. A saltspoonful (about 1/4 teaspoon) or two reads far more plausibly here, though the text as printed says teaspoonfuls.
- No oven temperature is givenA custard of this kind wants a moderate oven, 325 to 350F. Above that the eggs curdle and weep at the edges before the centre sets.
- Bake in a water bathThe original says only "bake in cups or pudding dishes." Setting the cups in a pan of hot water reaching halfway up their sides keeps the texture smooth. Small cups take 30 to 40 minutes, a single larger dish closer to an hour.
- Thick cream"Thick cream" in 1878 means unhomogenised cream risen to the top of the pan, near to what is sold as heavy cream today. It goes in last and unwhipped, so stir it in gently rather than beating air through the batter.
- Grated lemon rindTake only the coloured zest. The white pith beneath turns bitter in a bland custard, and there is nothing in this recipe to hide it behind.
- DonenessThe pudding is set when a knife slipped into the centre comes out clean and the surface no longer ripples as a whole. Carryover heat finishes it, so pull it slightly short.
- YieldSix eggs, a pint of milk and a pint of cream fill eight to ten teacups, or one large pudding dish serving eight.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, gathered contributions from some 250 Southern housekeepers, and the attributions preserve the etiquette of the day: "Mrs. Col. W." is identified by her husband's rank and initial rather than her own name. Recipes collected this way came out of working kitchens rather than editorial desks, which is both their value and their hazard -- quantities were often remembered rather than measured, and the pound of flour here is the kind of slip that survives into print when no one tests the copy. The dish itself belongs to the large family of baked cream and cup custards that carried English pudding-making into American cookery.