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Molded Rice and Apricots
Pick over and wash thoroughly 1 cupful of rice. Cook in a double boiler with 1 pint of milk and a pinch of salt. If it becomes too dry a little more milk may be added. When tender mix in lightly the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, cook for three minutes and take from the fire. Add 2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoonful of vanilla and turn into a buttered mold. Steam for ten minutes, then turn out on a heated dish. Round it heap halved apricots and pour over it a portion of the apricot syrup, heated and slightly thickened with arrowroot.
A plain milk-rice pudding set in a mold and dressed with fruit — cheap, filling, and entirely dependent on getting the rice soft before the eggs go in. A few of the terms have shifted since it was written.
- Rice and liquidA cup of rice to a pint of milk is a tight ratio, and the recipe itself allows for more milk as it cooks; expect to add some. A medium- or short-grain white rice releases more starch and binds the mold better; long-grain or converted rice is less likely to hold together cleanly when turned out.
- Double boiler timingFigure 45 minutes to an hour over simmering water, stirring occasionally. The original gives no time because "when tender" was the only test that mattered — the grains should be soft enough to crush against the side of the pan.
- The hinge: the yolksBeat the yolks with a spoonful of the hot rice first, then stir the mixture back in off direct heat. Three minutes in the double boiler is enough to set them; added cold and straight to a hot pan, they scramble and the pudding goes grainy.
- "Powdered sugar"In cookbooks of this vintage this generally means finely granulated or superfine sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Either will dissolve here, but superfine is closer to the intent.
- The moldAny 1-quart metal bowl, charlotte mold or pudding basin works. Butter it thoroughly and, for insurance, line the bottom with a round of parchment. Ten minutes of steaming is only to firm the surface so it releases; let it stand a minute or two before inverting.
- Apricots and syrupCanned apricot halves in syrup are what this assumes. Drain off about a cup of syrup, slake a scant teaspoon of arrowroot in cold water, stir it in and bring just to a simmer — arrowroot thickens almost instantly and thins again if held at a hard boil. Cornstarch substitutes, though it clouds the glaze.
- YieldServes four to six. Best warm; refrigerated, the rice firms considerably and the pudding is better sliced than spooned.
Molded rice puddings belong to a long line of European "rice moulds" and blancmange-adjacent desserts, in which the setting is done by rice starch and egg yolk together — historic blancmange, for its part, was variously set with isinglass or gelatine as well as with starch — an approach that turns a pint of milk and a cup of rice into a dish that looks composed enough for a table. Rice, milk, two yolks and a tin of fruit were among the least expensive things a household could assemble into something that resembled a company dessert, and the apricot syrup does the decorative work that a cook with more money would have done with cream or preserved fruit. Arrowroot, imported and once fairly dear, became a common pantry thickener recommended for exactly this kind of clear fruit glaze, because it sets glossy and transparent where flour would go dull.