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Peach Pudding (Large peaches cups flour)
6 large peaches 2 cups flour 4 tablespoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons shortening 3/4 cup milk 1/2 cup sugar Pare the peaches, and slice. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt; cut in shortening. Add milk, making soft dough. Pour into greased baking pan. Cover the dough with slices of peaches. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a hot oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve with sweetened fruit sauce. Serves 8.
A cobbler in all but name: a soft biscuit dough baked under sliced peaches. The whole thing is a fifteen-minute assembly, so the only decisions that matter are the leavening and the oven.
- The baking powder is out of rangeFour tablespoons of baking powder is 12 teaspoons, four to six times normal practice for two cups of flour, and will taste soapy and metallic. Standard proportion for a biscuit dough is 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup of flour, so 2 to 3 teaspoons total here.
- "Hot oven"In books of this period a hot oven is 425-450F. Use 425F for 25 to 30 minutes, until the dough is set through and browned at the edges where the fruit does not cover it.
- ShorteningThree tablespoons of shortening means solid vegetable shortening or lard, cut in cold so it stays in flecks. Cold butter works and tastes better, though the crumb will be slightly less tender.
- Pan sizeNo pan is specified. An 8-inch square or a 9-inch round pie dish holds this dough at about half an inch deep, which is what the 25-minute bake assumes. A larger pan gives a thin, dry base.
- The dough goes in, not onUnlike a modern cobbler, the dough is spread in the pan first and the fruit laid over the top. It rises up around the peaches as it bakes. Spread it with a wet spatula rather than trying to pour a soft dough evenly.
- PeachesSix large peaches is about 2 to 2 1/2 lb, peeled and sliced. Freestone varieties cut away from the pit far more easily than clingstones; a 30-second dip in boiling water slips the skins off either.
- Sweetened fruit sauceRead as a thin cooked fruit puree or syrup rather than a custard. Crushed sweetened berries, or peach trimmings simmered with sugar and a little water and strained, both suit it. Cream is the modern default and no worse.
Peach pudding of this sort sits on the line between a steamed English pudding and the American cobbler, and the name tells you the older word was still doing service for anything baked, sweet and spoonable. Its real distinguishing feature is chemical leavening: baking powder in tins made a sweet biscuit dough a weeknight proposition, and household books of this kind lean on it heavily, sometimes to excess. Puddings like this were planned around whatever fruit was cheap and in season, and a dish built from pantry staples plus six pieces of fruit was exactly the kind of dessert a menu-planning book existed to supply.