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Pineapple Cornstarch Mold
Add one can pineapple to Cornstarch Pudding No. 1, and serve with custard sauce.
A two-line variation that assumes you have the base pudding in front of you. Everything that can go wrong here happens at the mold stage, so read the drainage and setting notes first.
- Drain the pineapple hardA can of pineapple carries a great deal of syrup, and that liquid will thin a set cornstarch pudding into a sauce. Drain the fruit in a sieve, press it lightly, and blot it dry before folding it in; save the syrup for something else.
- What "one can" meantFruit cans of the period were commonly around the size of a modern No. 2 can, about 20 oz net. Drained, that gives roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of fruit, which suits a quart-sized pudding.
- Cornstarch Pudding No. 1The base is not given here; period molded cornstarch puddings generally ran in the region of 1/2 cup cornstarch to a quart of milk with sugar and salt, cooked until thick and the raw starch taste is gone. Check the base recipe for its own proportions, and give it a minute or two of cooking after it thickens.
- Fold the fruit in off the heatStir the drained pineapple into the pudding once it comes off the stove and has stopped bubbling. Prolonged boiling with acidic fruit breaks down cornstarch and the mold will not stand up when turned out.
- Bromelain is not a problem hereFresh pineapple contains an enzyme that digests protein, which is why it ruins gelatin. Canned pineapple has been heated enough to destroy it, and cornstarch is a starch rather than a protein in any case, so canned fruit is the right choice for this dish.
- The moldRinse a 1 1/2 quart mold in cold water and do not dry it; the film of water lets the pudding release. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight, then loosen the edge and dip the mold briefly in warm water before inverting.
- Custard sauceA stirred egg custard, thin enough to pour. Cook it over water and pull it at 175-180F, when it coats a spoon; past that it curdles. It is served cold, so make it before the pudding goes into the refrigerator.
- YieldA quart of pudding with fruit serves six to eight.
Cornstarch puddings, called blancmange in many of the same books, were a staple of the American dessert table from the 1850s onward, when commercially milled cornstarch became cheap and reliable and gave cooks a fast alternative to isinglass, gelatin, or Irish moss. Lowney's, published by a Boston chocolate company, ran a numbered series of these base puddings and then rang changes on them with whatever a household was likely to have on the shelf. Canned pineapple is exactly that sort of ingredient: Hawaiian canning scaled up sharply around the turn of the twentieth century, and a fruit that had been an expensive centerpiece for the wealthy became a can in the pantry. The recipe's brevity is the point. It tells you nothing because it assumes the base pudding is already familiar and the only new idea worth a line is the fruit.