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Nesselrode Pudding
1/2 box Knox gelatine 2 C hot milk 5 eggs Mrs. J. E. Triggs. 1 C chopped dates 3 T pecan meats ¼ orange peel, cut fine Beat yolks, add sugar and stir into hot milk. Cook one minute, stirring constantly. Dissolve gelatine in cold water and add to the milk mixture and stir until dissolved. Then add the chopped nuts, dates, orange peel and a little salt. Set in a pan of cold water for five minutes, then add the beaten whites of eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla. , then add the beaten whites of eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla. Put into molds which have been dipped into cold water. Serve with whipped cream. 1 C whipped cream
A church-supper gelatin dessert standing in for a much grander frozen pudding. The transcription is garbled in places, and the method leaves the eggs undercooked.
- Raw whites, never cookedThe beaten whites go into a mixture that has already been cooled in a pan of cold water, and the pudding is then set in molds and chilled. Nothing in the finished dessert ever reaches a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and the custard base itself is cooked only "one minute" with no target consistency or temperature given. Use a current recipe if you want a chilled egg-and-gelatin pudding.
- The sugar is missingThe instructions say to beat the yolks and add sugar, but no quantity appears in the ingredient list. Comparable custards of the period run roughly half a cup to three-quarters of a cup for five eggs and two cups of milk, but the original as printed cannot be followed.
- "1/2 box Knox gelatine"A box of Knox held four envelopes of about a quarter ounce each, so half a box is two envelopes, roughly two level tablespoons of granulated gelatin. Against two cups of milk plus the unmeasured cold water used to soften it, that is a firm set, enough to unmold cleanly.
- "14 orange peel"Evidently a mangled fraction, perhaps 1/4 cup of finely cut peel or the peel of a quarter orange. Candied peel would suit a sweet cold pudding better than fresh, but the source does not say which.
- Repeated lineThe clause about the beaten whites and vanilla appears twice in the transcription. It is a duplication artifact, not a second addition.
- Dipping the moldsWetting the molds with cold water before filling is the pre-nonstick release trick; the film of water keeps the gelatin from gripping the metal. It still works.
- YieldThe two cups of milk plus the softening water, fruit and nuts will fill a mold of roughly a quart, or several small ones.
Nesselrode pudding is generally traced to Count Karl von Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister of the first half of the nineteenth century, and to a chef in his household; the original was a frozen cream stiff with pureed chestnuts, candied fruits soaked in maraschino, and currants, and it was a fixture of grand restaurant menus and holiday tables on both sides of the Atlantic well into the twentieth century. What Mrs. Triggs contributes here is the American church-cookbook translation of that idea: no ice cream freezer, no chestnuts, no liqueur, but gelatin, dates, pecans and candied orange peel standing in for the expensive imported fruit, set in a mold and served with whipped cream. The name carried enough prestige that it survived the substitutions, which is much of what a community cookbook of this period is doing throughout "Desserts-Puddings" -- borrowing the vocabulary of restaurant cookery for dishes a household could actually assemble.