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Wine Pudding
8 ounces stale cake crumbs 1 wineglass sherry 1 pint milk 1 ounce of sugar Pass the cake through a nut mill, or break into small pieces, put it into a basin, and pour the boiling milk over; let it stand for fifteen minutes, then beat well with a fork, and add the sugar and sherry. Put into a greased pie dish to bake for twenty minutes. A little lemon rind or juice may be added if liked.
A frugal stale-cake pudding with no eggs and no flour, so it never sets firm — expect something between a bread pudding and a thick soaked sponge. A few of the measures need translating.
- WineglassIn household books of this period a wineglass is reckoned at about 2 fl oz, roughly a quarter cup. Sherry is the intended wine; a medium or cream sherry suits the sweetness better than a dry fino.
- Pint of milkIf the book is British the pint is 20 fl oz; an American pint is 16. Start with 16 fl oz — 8 oz of dry crumbs will drink a great deal, but a very light sponge can turn to soup with the larger measure.
- Nut millA hand-cranked rotary grater with a hopper, once standard for nuts and dry cheese. A food processor pulsed briefly does the same work; stop while the crumbs are still coarse, since powder makes a pasty pudding.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the recipe names no oven term. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern reading: twenty minutes at that heat sets the surface and warms the pudding through.
- Basin and pie dishThe basin is a mixing bowl. The pie dish is an oval baking dish, not a pastry case — allow at least 2 pints capacity for a pint of milk, the sherry and 8 oz of crumbs, well buttered.
- Pour the milk boilingThe soaking is the whole method. Milk well below boiling softens stale cake more slowly, and the fork-beating afterwards is what breaks it down rather than leaving a layer of sodden crumbs.
- Add the sherry off the heatThe recipe stirs it in after the milk has been absorbed, which keeps more of the wine flavour than pouring it into boiling milk would.
- YieldFour modest servings. Good hot with cream or a thin custard, though the recipe suggests no accompaniment.
Puddings built on stale cake or bread were a fixture of the Victorian and Edwardian kitchen, where nothing baked was allowed to go to waste and a leftover sponge had a second life as cabinet pudding, queen of puddings, or this simpler wine pudding. The sherry is doing double duty: it flavours a dish whose base ingredients are deliberately cheap, and it signals a certain respectability at table. Vegetarian and Lenten cookbooks of the early twentieth century leaned heavily on milk, eggs and cereal foods, and their dessert chapters were often close cousins of the standard general cookbooks of the day.