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Rice Pudding with Burnt Sugar
2 1/2 ounces rice 2 tablespoons sugar 1 1/2 pints milk Wash the rice, and put it into the boiling milk in a double saucepan, and simmer gently until well done. Put the sugar into a small saucepan with four tablespoons of water, and boil until it becomes brown and thick; then spread it round a mold which has been previously warmed. Pour the rice into the mold, and set it in a stewpan with some boiling water. Put the pan into the oven until the top of the pudding is brown; then set it on stove to simmer half an hour longer. Turn out, and serve very hot.
A caramel-lined rice pudding, closer to a crème caramel than to the baked nursery version. The whole thing turns on the caramel: it must go into a warm mold and set as a thin coating, or it will pool and weld the pudding in place.
- Measure the rice by weight2 1/2 ounces of short- or medium-grain rice is about 1/3 cup. Pudding rice or Arborio gives the creamy result intended; long-grain stays separate and loose.
- The milk quantity is ambiguousIf the book is British, 1 1/2 pints is 30 fl oz, roughly 3 1/2 cups; if American, 24 fl oz or 3 cups. Either works, since the rice is simmered until done rather than to a fixed time, but the larger amount gives a looser pudding that will need longer to firm.
- Double saucepanA double boiler, or a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Milk and rice scorch readily over direct heat, which is the main reason for the contraption; a heavy-bottomed pan over very low heat, stirred often, does the same job in less time.
- The caramelTwo tablespoons of sugar with four tablespoons of water is a thin syrup that must boil a good while before the water leaves and the sugar colors. Take it to a deep amber and no further, then swirl it round the warmed mold at once; caramel stiffens on contact with cold metal.
- Oven and water bathThe stewpan of boiling water is a bain-marie. Set the mold in a roasting pan of hot water and put it in a moderately hot oven only until the top of the pudding browns; the recipe gives no temperature or time, and browning is the sole cue.
- The half hour on the stoveAfter browning, the pudding is returned to gentle heat so the center sets through. Keep the water at a bare simmer; a hard boil will make the outside grainy.
- Turning outRun a knife round the rim and invert onto a warm dish while the pudding is still hot. Once the caramel cools it grips, and the pudding tears.
- YieldThree to four servings. Rice pudding of this kind is best eaten the day it is made, and the caramel tends to loosen into syrup on standing.
Rice puddings set in a caramel-lined mold sit at the meeting point of the English nursery pudding and the French caramel custards to which crème caramel belongs. Milk, rice and sugar produced a filling, respectable hot dessert without meat stock or suet, which mattered for Lenten tables and for households wanting a cheap sweet. The double saucepan is the period's answer to a persistent problem, since coal ranges gave uneven, fierce heat and milk left over a direct flame caught almost at once.