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Fruit Pudding
Cook together 1 cupful each of strained fruit juice and water. When boiling sweeten to taste, then stir in 3 scant tablespoonfuls of corn-starch mixed with 1/4 of a teaspoonful of salt and enough cold water to make a thin paste. Stir until thickened smoothly, then draw a little to one side and boil slowly for ten minutes. Whip the whites of 3 eggs to a stiff froth. Turn them into the boiling mixture and cook and fold in lightly for three minutes longer. Take at once from the fire and pour into a wetted mold, adding I or 2 layers of whole fruit. Serve very cold with a custard made with the egg yolks, 1 pint of milk, a pinch of salt, 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar and a few drops of suitable flavoring.
A cornstarch fruit mold with a stirred custard sauce — the whole thing is built from one cup of juice, three eggs and a little starch. It stands or falls on cooking the starch long enough and chilling it hard.
- The hinge: boil the starch outThe ten minutes of slow boiling after thickening is not padding. Cornstarch that has only just thickened tastes chalky and will weep as it sets, so keep it barely bubbling and stir often to stop it scorching on the bottom.
- Which fruit juice"Strained fruit juice" means the liquid from cooked or canned fruit, not modern bottled juice concentrate. Berry, cherry, plum or peach syrup all work; very acidic juices can thin a starch gel, so if using something sharp, cook the starch in the water first and stir the juice in near the end.
- Cornstarch measureThree scant tablespoons to two cups of liquid gives a soft mold that will just hold a slice. For a firmer unmolding, go to a level four tablespoons. Mix it smooth with cold water before it goes near the pot.
- Folding in the whitesStiff whites dropped into boiling starch will cook in streaks if you stir hard. Take the pan to low heat, add the whites in two or three additions and fold with a spatula for the full three minutes so they set through — the result should look like snow suspended in the jelly, tinted whatever colour the juice is.
- Wetting the moldRinse the mold with cold water and do not dry it; the film of water is what lets the pudding drop out. A mold, bowl or loaf pan of roughly 1 to 1 1/2 quarts should suit, depending on how much whole fruit goes in. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight.
- The custard sauceWhisk the three yolks with the sugar and salt, temper with the hot pint of milk, then cook over low heat or a water bath, stirring, until it coats a spoon — around 175-180F. It must not boil or it will scramble. "Suitable flavoring" means vanilla, or almond or lemon to match the fruit.
- YieldProbably about six small portions. Both parts should be thoroughly cold before serving; a lukewarm starch mold is unpleasant.
This is the frugal end of a large family of nineteenth-century starch molds — the same idea as blancmange or Danish rødgrød, but thickened with cornstarch rather than the older isinglass, gelatin or ground rice. Cornstarch became cheap and widely sold in American groceries in the second half of the 1800s, and cookbooks aimed at economy leaned on it heavily: it turned a cup of leftover canning syrup or stewed-fruit liquid into a dessert for six. The recipe's real thrift is that it uses the whole egg twice over, whites beaten into the mold to lighten and stretch it, yolks made into the sauce poured over the top, so nothing is bought that the pantry did not already hold.